A Student's Guide to Australian Politics

Following the news can be hard, with all of the politicians who seem to pop up from nowhere and have confusingly similar names; the decisions which seem to have no impact at all (especially on you!); and the jargon (technical terms) in newspapers. All of this combined means you’re often left out of the loop and have absolutely no clue as to what is happening. In your life or in the news. It’s a double whammy. This guide aims to remedy that problem, providing an easy-to-follow, irreverent and totally uncomplicated guide to the Top Nine Things which have Happened in Australian Politics this Year. Capital letters - it must be serious!

Before we dive in, let’s cover some basics.

The Government is split into three levels. At the top there is the Federal Government, who make the big decisions about Australia. On the second tier there is the State Government (which is rather self- explanatory, but I’ll explain anyway) who make decisions about whichever state you live in. As you’ll see later in this article, some Australian states have different laws about important issues, like abortion. Then, at the last level there is the Local Government, who make decisions about your neighbourhood (like what buildings there should be, and other infrastructure related decisions).

There are two major parties who rule over Australian politics. Firstly, there is Labor, who are centre (which means slightly progressive; they’re not hippie enough to be completely to the left side). Most Melbournians vote for Labor, because they’re total hipsters who are generally open-minded. Going against them is the Liberal party (the other main party) who are right winged. The Liberals have more traditional values, often prioritise money. But because politics can never be simple and we have to make it as mind-boggling as possible, the Liberal party is often referred to as the Coalition. A coalition is when more than one party join together to form a majority government, in this case, the Liberal party and the National party.

Last year, Malcolm Turnbull was our Prime Minister, and he was a member of the Liberal party, but he got kicked out because people in his party thought that Scott Morrison would make a better PM. ScoMo (as Scott Morrison is fondly called) ran for PM again this year...

If you remember we left off with our dear friend ScoMo, the new leader of the Liberal party/Coalition government who ran for PM again at the May Federal Election. Going against him was Bill Shorten, the leader of the Labour party, who many people expected to win.

More surprising than the big reveal of Darth Vader being Luke’s father were the election results - ScoMo and his Coalition government won the majority of seats in the Senate. Melbourne, however, along with wider Victoria voted mainly for Labor, which is not that surprising since we do live in a hippie-infested area (you can’t escape them and their beards!).

Australian politicians (who form the Coalition, if you remember) have put a whole lot of refugees in detention camps. A lot of people come to Australia seeking asylum, but unfortunately Australia doesn’t generally let many of them in, especially if they come on boats. To “deal” with the situation, the Australians have set up a prison camp where all of these refugees can go. Sometimes these refugees get sick, since the conditions in the camps are so awful. The Medevac bill ensures that really sick asylum seekers are sent to Australia to get treatment, rather than dying on Nauru island. These refugees get to come to Australia with their families while they are receiving treatment and then are sent back to their detention camps afterwards, when they are well. This bill saves lives, which is obviously a bonus but doesn’t actually solve the refugee crisis Australia is currently facing (like where the refugees we let in can live).

The Australian government has decided that building a massive coal mine in Queensland which destroys all of the natural environment is a good idea. But what they haven’t thought through is that by destroying lots of natural environment, they are destroying lots of traditional Indigenous land. Despite a fierce fight from members of the Wangan and Jagalingou Traditional Owners Family Council, the mining plant is still going ahead, taking all of that sacred space with it.

In Government, there is an Indigenous Affairs Minister who is responsible for the interests of the Indigenous Australians in our country. This year, the first ever Indigenous Australian assumed that role. Yes, I know. I can see you rereading those two sentences. This position has existed for a while, but there has never been an actually Indigenous person in it. Crazy right? Nigel Scullion retired this year, with Ken Wyatt stepping up as his successor (he is part of the Liberal party).

Wait, no!! Don’t skip over this one! Tax is super boring, but read this and you’ll understand it and then you can brag to all of your friends about how under control your life is. Tax is one of the dullest things on earth and can be hard to understand, so I’ll make this quick and simple. Every year, people have to pay a certain amount of what they earn to the government (this is how the government funds itself). What people pay depends on how much money they earn.

SKM, the largest recycling company in Australia went out of business because they were in too much debt, leaving the 31 Victorian Councils they have contracts with (including Darebin!) hanging. But Victorians haven’t reduced the amount of recycling they are producing .... so what is happening with it? SKM has left 10,000 tonnes of recycling in their warehouses, with seemingly no plan to do anything with it. The government’s bright idea recently has been to just take all of that recycling to tips. If you think you’re doing something good by putting your paper and glass into their correct spots in the recycling bin, you’re actually not, since it is all going to end up in landfill anyway. The State Government has put $6.6 million (sounds like a lot, but if you think about how much money the Government is sitting on, it’s a puny amount) to “deal with the situation”. I.e. put all of the recycling into tips. On a larger, generic Australia scale, the Federal Government is pretending to do something about recycling. They have recently announced they will “work towards a timeline to ban exports” of recycled goods. For all we know, that timeline could be 100 years and they haven’t even started it yet!

​A lot of you readers have probably gone to climate strikes, calling for the government to take action. Over the last 10 months there have been frequent School Strikes 4 Climate, with kids rallying for the politicians to get off their bums and actually do something about protecting the only world we have to live in. After all of these efforts, isn’t it nice to know that the government hasn’t actually done anything and is continuing to ruin the planet?

A couple of weeks ago there was an international Climate Change Conference, where world leaders gathered to discuss how we can help the environment and climate we’ve done such a good job of messing up. At the conference Australia’s representatives pleaded for less of a commitment and looser terms in the agreement everyone had to make. On top of this embarrassing behaviour, Australia was further humiliated when the PM of the Pacific Nations criticised Australia for not doing anything for the climate. He asked Australia to phase-out our coal use as a way to help the environment (which we’re definitely not doing, just look at Adani!).

Euthanasia is the process of painlessly putting a terminally ill patient to death (with their consent, doctors don’t just go around killing people!). Currently Victoria is the only state in Australia to have legalised euthanasia. But soon we may not be, if the bill to legalise this process passes the Western Australian government. The vote will be held in a couple of weeks.

Abortion is hot in the news in New South Wales, where women are calling for the right to have control over their own bodies, but conservative politicians are combating this.

Abortion is legal in every other Australian state except for New South Wales. The bill was going to be voted on this week, but right-winged politicians have postponed it to September, hoping to buy time for their case. It is uncertain whether or not the bill will actually pass, but if it doesn’t, women will be forced to travel interstate to terminate their pregnancies.