politics and law

Question 1

what is a bill?

Answer 1

a proposal for a new law or to change an existing law.

Question 2

what is a legislation or a statute?

Answer 2

a law made by the parliament that has passed

Question 3

what are the three steps of Parliament?

Answer 3

the house of representatives
the senate
the Governor General

Question 5

what is the house of Representatives?

Answer 5

made up of 151 seats of representatives from Australia and has government, opposition, independents, minor parties

Question 6

what is the senate?

Answer 6

the senate is the upper house of the parliament with 36 seats

Question 7

what does the speaker do?

Answer 7

-controls the debate in the house

-has the power to send members of parliament out for disruptive behaviour

-doesn’t get to vote unless there is a tie

Question 8

what is the opposition?

Answer 8

the opposition is the party with the second most seats in the House of Government

Question 9

what does the opposition do

Answer 9

there role is to scrutinise the government by debating on bills and to question the government by holding them accoutable

Question 10

what are ministers

Answer 10

ministers are senior members of government who are in charge of different areas (e.g minister of defence, education, health)

Question 11

what is the government (how is it formed)

Answer 11

the party with the most seats in the house of representatives.

Question 12

what is the difference between the house of representatives

Answer 12

-the House of Representatives is green and the Senate is red

-The Senate is the upper house and the House of Representatives is the lower house

-The 76 senators represent their state or territory. The House of Representatives is recognisable by its green seats and carpet. The 151 members of the House of Representatives represent electorates

Question 13

why is it easy to get a bill to pass through the House of Representatives

Answer 13

because the government has more seats than the opposition in the House of Representatives

Question 14

what is the role of backbenchers

Answer 14

-Backbenchers do lots of work investigating and debating bills.

-they also work to draw attention to the electorate or state and territory issues by speaking about them in Parliament.

Question 14

what is the role of the role of the front benchers

Answer 14

the ministers are the front benchers

the role of a minister includes introducing bills and answering questions about their portfolio during Question Time.

Opposition frontbenchers are shadow ministers who have been given the responsibility of scrutinising

Question 15

who are front benchers

Answer 15

Ministers and shadow ministers are frontbenchers. They sit on the front row of the seats in either the Senate or the House of Representatives.

Question 16

who are the back benchers

Answer 16

Backbenchers are members of parliament who are not ministers or shadow ministers; they sit in the rows of seats behind the frontbench.

Question 17

what is an appeal

Answer 17

In law, an appeal is the process in which cases are reviewed by a higher authority

Question 18

what is common law

Answer 18

common law is made by judges and is a case based system