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According to the Constitution, the Governor-General is the Queen's official representative in Australia.

The Constitution gives the Governor-General a number of very significant powers. She can summon and prorogue (suspend) parliament; she can appoint ministers; she is commander-in-chief of the armed forces, she can issue writes for an election - either of the House of Representatives, or, in special circumstances, both Houses of Parliament.

As part of her power to appoint ministers, the Governor-General appoints the Prime Minister and the other members of the Cabinet.

Although the Constitution gives the Governor-General all of these powers, she is expected not to exercise them except when "advised" (in reality ordered) to, by the Prime Minister. For example, the Governor-General will not call an election unless the Prime Minister advises her to. When one Prime Minister loses the election, he will advise her to appoint a new Prime Minister, who is, except in very rare circumstances, the leader of the party with majority support in the House of Representatives.

This is because the Prime Minister has a democratic mandate as the leader of a political party in Parliament, while the Governor-General is not part of Parliament and is not elected by anybody.

The Governor-General will only intervene in politics (for example, to sack the Prime Minister) if there is some sort of crisis in government. The one time when a Governor-General used his own initiative to sack a Prime Minister was in November 1975, and the dismissal of Gough Whitlam. This action was hugely controversial both then and now.

In practice, the Governor-General simply approves the actions that the Prime Minister and her other Ministers recommend. She spends most of her time attending official functions - eg. the opening of new schools, awards ceremonies, etc.

-Charles

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Donato White

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3y ago

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