Politics of Australia and Canada compared
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There are a great many similarities between Canada and Australia. They are both fully-independent former settler colonies of Britain from which they have inherited their political traditions. Both nations are large, relatively isolated, and sparsely inhabited.
Canada, being the first of the colonies to peacefully gain independence, became a model that was followed by Australia and the other Dominions. Both were also affected by the same events in Britain and around the world: World War I, the creation of the shared monarchy in 1927, the Statute of Westminster in 1931, WWII, and the Cold War had similar effects on both nations.
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Federalism
Unlike the United Kingdom, both Australia and Canada cover huge and sparsely populated territories. This made some sort of federalism a necessity. A previous history of division into separate colonies also created long-standing divisions. In Canada, the British North America Act of 1867 thus created strong provincial governments that are in no way subservient to the federal government. The Australian constitution of 1901 divided the new nation into several states with similar constitutionally-enshrined powers.
Both nations also have territories; these are areas with smaller populations whose governments have almost all of the responsibilities of state/provincial governments, but are fully under the control of the federal government.
Parliament
The executive is all but identical with the British heritage of cabinet government kept intact with the Prime Minister being the paramount figure in each nation.
In terms of the Senate, almost all Canadians want some kind of reform. Many are pushing for a Senate that would be elected, equal, and powerful. Others, such as the New Democratic Party and the Bloc Québécois are calling for the total abolition of the Canadian Senate. In Australia, all of the reforms — making their senate elected, equal and powerful — have been introduced. The Australian Senate is divided equally among the states, while the Canadian Senate, is divided based on the regions of Canada. The Australian Senate also has great power to block bills, unlike the weaker Canadian Senate. The Australian Senate is elected by proportional representation, while Senators in Canada are appointed by the Prime Minister
Another area Australia has diverged from Britain and Canada is in abandoning first past the post voting. In Australia instant runoff voting (known in Australia as preferential voting) is used for almost all elections. While it is more complex than Canada's system, it is also much more closely representative of the actual will of the people.
Australia has also introduced compulsory voting, something Canada has not done. There is no pressure to introduce such a measure in Canada, although poor electoral turnouts in the past two elections are beginning to make Canadians seriously consider some sort of electoral reform (while no major party wants mandatory voting, the NDP's platform indicates that they wish to lower the voting age to 16, something that reduced voter apathy in Brazil).
Canada and Australia both have strong multiparty systems with many parties represented in their legislatures as opposed to two (as in the United States).
Judiciary
The nations share a very similar judicial system based on British common law (except for Quebec which uses the French civil code). The highest court of both nations are now domestic, with Canada doing away with appeals to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in 1949 and Australia doing the same in 1986.
Monarchy
Queen Elizabeth II is the head of state of both Australia and Canada. Both nations have a Governor-General who acts as a vice-regal representative. In 1936, Australia moved to appointing Australians as Governor-General; Canada did not do so until 1953.
An important difference between the political cultures of the two nations is that Australians tend to be far more republican than Canadians. In almost all polls, the majority of Australians oppose continuing the monarchy, and only the issue of finding a suitable replacement stopped scrapping it in 1999. By contrast, a majority of Canadians have been consistently shown to support continuing the monarchy, and it is not a notable political issue. Most pundits ascribe this to the Canadian habit of glorifying anything that distinguishes them from Americans. Australia often tends to have closer cultural links to the U.K. than to the U.S., making the search for differences with the Americans a far less pressing concern.
Aboriginals
Both Canada and Australia were inhabited long before European colonizers arrived. The First Nations of Canada and the Aborigines of Australia were both devastated by European disease and other factors. In both areas, the Europeans went on to cruelly mistreat the native inhabitants. Conditions have improved, but in both countries the natives tend to be poorer than the national average. Australian treatment of Aborigines in the past was generally more systematically cruel than in Canada, but most now argue that Australian Aborigines are better off and better treated than Canada's First Nations.
Immigration
Both Australia and Canada are nations built by immigrants, and they are both among the nations that receive the most immigrants per year. Attitudes differ substantially, however. In Canada, over 70% of the population is still in favour of high levels of immigration; in Australia, less than half the population is. Australia, like much of Europe, but unlike Canada, has seen a far-right anti-immigration party, the One Nation Party, gain some support — something which has never happened in Canada. In part this could be ascribed to geographical differences. Australia is far closer to the poor and densely populated lands of India, China, and Indonesia. Canada is far harder to reach, and consistently draws fewer immigrants than it wants.
Welfare State
Australia and Canada both tend to fall somewhere in the middle between the United States and Europe in terms of how extensive a welfare state they have. Australia has a somewhat greater involvement of the private sector with the privatization of many government enterprises, and increasing emphasis on private education and health care systems with Australia having a two-tier healthcare system.
War and Peace
Neither Canada nor Australia have been to war on their own; rather, they have fought under the leadership of first Britain and then the United States. The two nations are the most-commonly-cited examples of middle powers — states that try to pursue their interests through multilateralism and collective security because they are not large enough to act unilaterally.
Both Australia and Canada were immediately and enthusiastically called to the defence of Britain in World War I. While Australia suffered larger per capita casualties, the armies from the two dominions were acknowledged as the best of the British army, and both nations won prestige and greater independence in the war in Europe. Both Australia and Canada emerged divided from the war because of similar crises concerning conscription, which in Australia set Anglo-Saxon Protestants against Catholics of Irish stock, and in Canada French-Canadians against English Canadians.
The Second World War was similar in regard to both nations again springing to the defence of Britain. Unlike Australia, Canada's political fabric was divided by the war — again for similar reasons in the Conscription Crisis of 1944. While Quebec emerged from the troubles as a more distinct entity from the rest of Canada, the government handled this crisis in an astute fashion, cooling off tensions in months and years instead of generations.
The beginning of the Cold War saw both sides align with the United States: Canada being a founding member of NATO, and Australia signing the ANZUS treaty. Both nations sent troops to the Korean War.
From that point on, however, the pattern seems to have diverged as Australia joined the United States in Vietnam and in the 2003 Invasion of Iraq—two conflicts Canada stayed away from. Much of this can be accredited to which governments were in power at the time the conflicts began. If the Conservatives had been in power in Canada in 2003, that nation may have joined the war in Iraq. If the Australian Labor Party had been in office, that country may very well have not gone to war.