Charles Darwin was a Fraud!

The other day while I was waiting at the bus stop a lady came up to me and handed me a newspaper publication of her political party, the Citizens Electoral Council of Australia.  Since I had nothing better to do I started to read underneath the headline: "Charles Darwin was a Fraud!"  This had to be good.  The more I read, the more I was reminded of the American publication The National Enquirer (which pretends to report fact, but everyone knows this is not the case).  This paper was simply filled with lie after lie, from blaming Darwin for Hitler and Eugenics, to blaming Darwin for the current environmental legislation and "today's plague of Green Fascism".

At first I couldn't believe that a political party could actually be based on and perpetuating lies worthy of the lowest of tabloids, but then I quickly realized that similar things occur in the States.  Still, my interest in Australia's political system was piqued, and so I have outlined the basics below:

-Australia is a parliamentary democracy and is governed as a federation and constitutional monarchy

-Australia has a compulsory voting system

-National elections are held at least once every 3 years

-The current Prime Minister, Julia Gillard of the Australian Labor Party is currently facing great controversy over the carbon tax law she passed

-The major political parties are:  the Australian Labor Party (liberal, social, democratic), the Liberal Party (center-right), and the National Party of Australia (conservative)

-As described above, the "Liberal" parties in Australia are more conservative with the "Labor" parties being more liberal

-It is also a little known fact that Australia is still a member of the British Commonwealth

Although the "facts" described in this publication were hardly credible, I found the paper extremely entertaining, and plan to bring it back as a souvenir from my travels.  It prompted me to learn a bit more about the politics of my host country, and I hope that if this post was slightly less entertaining, it was at least informative.  Its easy to get so wrapped up in our own politics that we forget how many other countries there are with different systems, and that perhaps we could all learn something from each other.

*Feel free to click the pictures and attempt to read a bit of the articles*