The Australian Government is formed by the party or coalition with a majority in the House of Representatives, and its leader becomes Prime Minister. Ministers are drawn from parliament — members of the House or senators — recommended by the Prime Minister and approved by the Governor-General. Ministers with the most important portfolios form Cabinet, the key decision-making body. Representatives answer to the people through elections, and the Governor-General sits outside the government and must remain neutral.
First, a word about the term
"Responsible government" is the standard name for the arrangement described below: an executive drawn from parliament and answerable to it, rather than appointed separately from it.
The phrase does not appear in the testable section of Australian Citizenship: Our Common Bond, and all test questions come from that booklet. So learn the arrangement rather than the label. If you meet the term in a textbook or a conversation you will know what it refers to; if you never meet it, you have lost nothing, because the questions are built from the booklet's own sentences.
Those sentences are what follows.
Where the government comes from
It is formed from the House of Representatives
After a federal election, the Australian Government is generally formed by the party or coalition of parties with the majority of members in the House of Representatives. The leader of that party becomes the leader of the Australian Government: the Prime Minister.
The detail that matters is which House. A majority in the House of Representatives forms government. The Senate does not.
The Opposition is defined the same way
The party or coalition with the second largest number of members in the House of Representatives forms the Opposition, and its leader is called the Leader of the Opposition.
That is a definition rather than a description, and it is worth learning as one. The Opposition is not simply "everyone who disagrees" — it is a specific party or coalition identified by its number of seats in one specific chamber.
Ministers are drawn from parliament
The Prime Minister recommends members of the House of Representatives or senators to become ministers in the Australian Government. The Governor-General approves the appointment of the Prime Minister and ministers.
This is the heart of the arrangement. Ministers are not recruited from outside; they are already elected members of one of the two Houses. Every minister therefore sits in the parliament that scrutinises the government, and remains answerable to the electorate that put them there.
Cabinet
Government ministers are each responsible for an area of government, called a portfolio — the booklet gives employment, Indigenous Affairs and the Treasury as examples.
Ministers with the most important portfolios make up the Cabinet, which is the key decision-making body of government.
So there are three nested groups worth keeping straight: all members of parliament, the smaller set who are ministers, and the smaller set again who are in Cabinet.
Who answers to whom
The accountability runs in a chain, and the booklet states each link.
The people choose the parliament. Australia's system of government is a parliamentary democracy, and the power of the government comes from the Australian people because Australian citizens vote for people to represent them in parliament.
Representatives answer to the people. The representatives in parliament must answer to the people, through elections, for the decisions they make.
The government is drawn from, and depends on, the parliament. Government is formed by whoever holds the majority in the House of Representatives, and ministers are members of that parliament.
Voting is compulsory in federal and state or territory elections, which the booklet presents as showing the importance of participating in elections. It may not be compulsory to vote in local government elections in some states.
The Governor-General sits outside it
This is where careful reading pays, because the Governor-General is easy to place wrongly.
The Governor-General is not part of the government and must remain neutral.
The role includes:
- signing all Bills passed by the Australian Parliament into law, which is called Royal Assent
- performing ceremonial duties
- approving the appointment of the Australian Government and its ministers, federal judges and other officials
- starting the process for a federal election
Read those together and the pattern is clear. The Governor-General formalises and enables — signing, approving, starting the process — rather than deciding policy. Approving the appointment of ministers is not the same as choosing them; the Prime Minister recommends, and the Governor-General approves.
A question that offers "the Governor-General" as the person who runs the government, chooses ministers or leads a political party is testing whether you noticed the word neutral.
How a Bill becomes law
The legislative sequence shows the whole structure working, and it is short enough to memorise:
- A member of the Australian Parliament proposes a new law or a change to an existing one. The proposal is called a Bill.
- The House of Representatives and the Senate consider, debate and vote on whether they agree with the Bill.
- If a majority of members in each House agrees, the Bill goes to the Governor-General.
- The Governor-General signs the Bill so that it becomes law. This is called Royal Assent.
State and territory parliaments make their own laws in a similar way.
Two points in that sequence are commonly missed. Both Houses must agree — a majority in each, not overall. And the Governor-General's signature is the final step, which is exactly the neutral, formalising role described above.
The Senate's part
The Senate is the other House in the Australian Parliament, sometimes called the Upper House, the House of Review or the States' House.
Voters in each state elect senators to represent them, and all states are equally represented regardless of size or population. There are 76 senators in total: each state elects 12, and the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory elect two each.
Senators also consider, debate and vote on new laws or changes to laws, and discuss matters of national importance.
So the Senate participates fully in making law without being the chamber that determines who governs. Holding those two facts together is the single most useful thing in this topic.
Check yourself
- Which House determines who forms government?
- Who becomes Prime Minister?
- How is the Opposition defined?
- Where do ministers come from, and who recommends them?
- Who approves the appointment of the Prime Minister and ministers?
- What is Cabinet?
- Is the Governor-General part of the government?
- Name two things the Governor-General does.
- What is a Bill, and what is Royal Assent?
- How many senators are there, and how are they distributed?
Before the test
Learn the chain from voters to parliament to government, learn that ministers come from parliament, and learn the Governor-General as the neutral figure who signs, approves and starts processes without deciding them.
Our study guide covers the testable sections in order, and our guide to Australian government structure sets out the three levels of government that this material sits inside. Home Affairs publishes the booklet and revises it from time to time, so use the current official edition.