government in Australia what is it and what does it do today we're going to find out before we can talk about how government works we first need to ask what is government government is the group of people who are in charge of a country or a region they're the people who are responsible for ruling and running a particular area each country chooses their own kind of government and so everybody does things a little bit differently today we are talking about Australia Australia is what we would call a constitutional monarchy a monarchy is a country ruled by a monarch or a ruler who is king or queen because they were born into a particular family not because they were elected at the moment King Charles III is the monarch of Australia he is the ruler and the head of the country we don't get to choose who the Monarch is but Australia is not just a monarchy it's a con institutional monarchy meaning that whilst the Monarch is the ruler a group of people other than him make most of the decisions about how the country is run as per the Australian Constitution which is just a big group of rules about how the country is run under the rule of the Monarch the government makes the decisions about how the country is run the government's job is to make laws and provide certain services to the people who it governs running a nation is a complex business Australia has a lot of people living far away and their needs may not all be the same people in different areas are likely to have different needs which is why Australia has three levels of government to try and best meet the needs of everybody the top level is the federal government this is the national government it was formed in 1901 when Australia became a federation when all of the states and territories or the colonies of Australia decide Ed it would be better to work together as one nation the federal Parliament or the people elected to represent the people they meet in Cambra in the Australian Capital territory an area designated to be the nation's capital that wasn't one of the already established colonies the federal government sets laws and provides services for people all over Australia and these are things which can affect anyone in Australia such as managing our currency and making money immigration which which is people coming from other countries to live in Australia defense which is our army navy and Air Force and certain Nationwide communication such as mail phones and internet they need money to make all of these things work so they collect taxes and taxes are the money you pay to the government so that they can afford to run things and provide services the taxes the federal government collects include income tax goods and service tax or GST and compan tax then there's the second level a little more localized but still looking after a lot of area and a lot of people and that's State and territory governments there are six state governments and two territory governments in Australia these State and territory governments are responsible for things that affect people within their states or territories they make laws specific to their state or territory and provide services including looking after education hospitals public transport and public housing they also need money to run things and they collect payroll tax and stamp Duty which is the tax you pay when you buy a house but they get most of their funding from federal government grants which is money given by the federal government to do certain things then there's the third level of government which looks after a much smaller area and a much smaller group of people and that's local government there are over 500 local governments across Australia and these these are local councils these are shers and municipalities a municipality is a term for a more Suburban Council and a shire is more rural these councils set laws for these local areas and are responsible for local issues such as Parks pet and animal Administration and rubbish collection they also collect taxes through Council rates that homeowners pay and receive grants from federal and state governments so governments all over Australia can make laws and rules and you might be thinking well that might get confusing what if a rule that a state sets contradicts a rule that the federal government set well according to our constitution if a state law contradicts or goes against a federal law the federal law overrules the state's law there are some things that the federal government have the sole ability to make laws about such as defense whereas in other areas it's shared such as education territories are a little different the Federal Government Can overrule a territory laww at any time oh and I should note that the Australian Capital territory or the ACT doesn't have separate territory and local governments the ACT legislative assembly performs the role of territory government and local government partly due to the ACT being in comparable size to some sh and municipalities around the country in terms of both land area and population and there you go that's a quick overview of how government in Australia works if you want to find out more about how people are elected to join Parliament or legislative assemblies I've made a video on how elections work in Australia at a federal level and how Victorian State elections are run and you can check those out if you want to find out more thanks for watching this video If you enjoyed it feel free to check out some of my others uh about all kinds of things from Plants to cats to space and consider subscribing to that pretty cool thanks again take care stay curious and I'll see you next time