Australia is a Federal Constitutional Monarchy. As the world’s largest island continent, it is situated between the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean. While geographically located adjacent to South-east Asia, Australia has strong European roots and has a modern western style society. With a land surface area of approximately 7,700,000 square kilometres, it supports a population of almost 22,000,000 people.

 

The history of Australia incorporates a long early period of inhabitation by the indigenous Aboriginal peoples and later colonization by Britain in the 18^th century. Australia developed from its colonial period to Independence in 1901. With a long history of stable government, Australia has developed into a thriving modern nation with a diverse economy and high living standards. Voting is universal and compulsory for all persons over 18 years of age.

Major exports are minerals and energy, which have supported rapid recovery from the global financial crisis of 2008. Notably, Australia’s four major banks are rated in the top eleven internationally, demonstrating the strength in this sector compared with similar-sized nations.

English is the official and commonly used language. Australia’s population has largely descended from immigrants from the colonial, post-war and modern periods. It is a multi-cultural community that in recent times has been much more accepting of its multi-culturalism. While statistically the majority of inhabitants denote themselves as having a link to a Christian church (Roman Catholic, Anglican, various other denominations), church attendances are quite small reflecting only a nominal relationship for many of the inhabitants. In contrast to this, there are growing fundamental minorities of both Christian and Muslim persuasion. Both of whom are active in the provision of education. Relationships between the various groups are very positive on the whole, but some tensions develop, as demonstrated by the Cronulla race riots of 2007, when tensions were expressed as acts of group violence.

While Australia is the world’s driest continent, with vast tracts classed as desert, there is a substantial and highly efficient agricultural sector whose production is largely dependent upon rainfall in specific production areas. The nation has vast reserves of many different mineral types, uranium, coal and natural gas, all of which form part of a very substantial export program. Australia is a large consumer and net importer of manufactured products of all categories. Australia has recently developed in a regional provider of tertiary education, which has grown to be one of the larger export earners ($A5,000,000,000 in 2005), although strong currency values are posing significant problems for this sector.