Young Writers Society

I need information and fast!

I am currently doing an assignment on The Australian Federal political Sytems.
The questions that I need information for are as follows;

The Role of the politcal parties in the Australian Federal Political System:
-Their role at elections
-their role in parliament
-their role in government and opposition.

Please I really do need help, if you answer these I will practically love you forever!

Try and make the answer as detailed as possible! Please!

Well no-one else has answered and I can't promise anything detailed but I'd expect your teacher would want you to just speak about how they account for the other party's actions.

You'd need to elaborate a lot on each of these but to put it simply (in my opinion) -

Role at elections - They hold the incumbent governments accountable for their actions during their term and opposition political parties offer alternatives to the current government. Current governments also tend to renew their manifestos as there is always a sense of anti-incumbency (how substantial the anti-incumbency is varies from election to election) towards them and a change in social/political/economical climate makes it necessary for them to present new ideas to tackle new problems...

Role in parliament - Political parties' support would be needed to pass new laws in parliament and when one party does not have a majority they would often need to form a coalition with other parties of similar politics to pass new laws and although this leads to compromise and inefficiency, it is the alternative to when no one party has a clear majority. Also, opposition political parties debate the bills in parliament until a vote is finally had in which if there is a majority voting FOR the bill, then it is passed through to become a part of legislature (this must be done in both the lower and upper houses of parliament... dunno what the names of those are in Australia)

Role in government and opposition - Obviously, the political party in majority after the elections would aim to carry out its government's pre-election manifesto unless circumstances had changed and they found it was no longer possible. In this case, they would most likely try and keep any 'unkept proimises' silent. The opposition parties play a crucial role in scrutinising the actions of the incumbent government (we call them the shadow cabinet ministers from oppositions parties who specifically criticise the cabinet ministers' actions) particularly when a controversial law from the legislative branch or controversial actions from the executive branch of government take place. Therefore, the opposition helps keep a check and balance on power and helps make sure the government isn't mis-using it's power by constantly criticising which is an integral part of democracy.

Phew.