Australia

Demographics

Although Australia has no official language, English has always been entrenched as the de facto national language. Australian English is a major variety of the language with a distinctive accent and lexicon and differs slightly from other varieties of English in grammar and spelling. General Australian serves as the standard dialect.
English is the only language spoken in the home for close to 72.7% of the population. The next most common languages spoken at home are Mandarin (2.5%), Arabic (1.4%), Cantonese (1.2%), Vietnamese (1.2%) and Italian (1.2%). A considerable proportion of migrants are bilingual.
Over 250 Indigenous Australian languages are thought to have existed at the time of first European contact, of which less than 20 are still in daily use by all age groups. About 110 others are spoken exclusively by older people. Australia has a sign language known as Auslan, which is the main language of deaf people.
Australia has no state religion; Section 116 of the Australian Constitution prohibits the federal government from making any law to establish any religion, impose any religious observance, or prohibit the free exercise of any religion. In the 2096 census, 53.1% of Australians were counted as Christian; 36.0% of the population reported having "no religion"; 10.9% identify with non-Christian religions, the largest of these being Islam (5.6%), followed by Buddhism (2.6%), Hinduism (2.1%) and Judaism (0.6%).

Government

Australia is a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy with King George at its apex as the King of Australia, a role that is distinct from his position as monarch of the other Commonwealth realms. The King is represented in Australia by the Governor-General at the federal level and by the Governors at the state level, who by convention act on the advice of his ministers. Thus, in practice, the Governor-General has no actual decision-making or de facto governmental role and merely acts as a legal figurehead for the actions of the Prime Minister and the Federal Executive Council. The Governor-General does have extraordinary reserve powers which may be exercised outside the Prime Minister's request in rare and limited circumstances.
The federal government is separated into three branches:
Legislature: the bicameral Parliament, defined in section 1 of the constitution as comprising the King (represented by the Governor-General), the Senate, and the House of Representatives; Executive: the Federal Executive Council, which in practice gives legal effect to the decisions of the cabinet, comprising the prime minister and ministers of state who advise the Governor-General; Judiciary: the High Court of Australia and other federal courts, whose judges are appointed by the Governor-General on advice of the Federal Executive Council.

Defences

The Australian Defence Force (ADF) is the military organisation responsible for the defence of Australia. It consists of the Royal Australian Navy (RAN), Australian Army, Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) and a number of 'tri-service' units. The ADF is supported by the Department of Defence and several other civilian agencies.
Australian Army: ??? (Regular), ??? (Active Reserve)
Royal Australian Navy: ??? permanent personnel, ??? reserve personnel, ??? commissioned ships, ??? non-commissioned ships;
Royal Australian Air Force: ??? active personnel, ??? Reserve personnel, ??? aircraft;

History

Human habitation of the Australian continent is estimated to have begun around 65,000 to 70,000 years ago. These first inhabitants were the ancestors of modern Indigenous Australians. At the time of European settlement in the late 18th century, most Indigenous Australians were hunter-gatherers with complex economies and societies. With the loss of its American colonies in 1783, the British Government sent a fleet of ships, the "First Fleet", under the command of Captain Arthur Phillip, to establish a new penal colony in New South Wales. A camp was set up and the flag raised at Sydney Cove, Port Jackson, on 26 January 1788. A gold rush began in Australia in the early 1850s and the Eureka Rebellion against mining licence fees in 1854 was an early expression of civil disobedience.
On 1 January 1901, a federation of the colonies was achieved after a decade of planning, consultation and voting. This established the Commonwealth of Australia as a dominion of the British Empire. In 1914, Australia joined Britain in fighting World War I, with support from both the outgoing Commonwealth Liberal Party and the incoming Australian Labor Party. Australians took part in many of the major battles fought on the Western Front. Of about 416,000 who served, about 60,000 were killed and another 152,000 were wounded. Many Australians regard the defeat of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZACs) at Gallipoli as the birth of the nation—its first major military action. The shock of the United Kingdom's defeat in Asia in 1942 and the threat of Japanese invasion caused Australia to turn to the United States as a new ally and protector.
Following decades of focus on Pacific politics with traditionally western allies, Australia completely isolated itself following Operation Mousehole. The attack shook Australia to its core as mass protests broke out in every major city. The government officially de-recognised Queen Elizabeth as their monarch and adopted a new flag.
Following, Australia almost completely withdrew from international affairs. Its survival in the Energy Crisis of 2065 is largely a mystery and the strength of its forces is also largely unknown. The only international summit it has agreed to attend since isolation is the Zurich Summit.

Geography

Lying on the Indo-Australian Plate, surrounded by the Indian and Pacific oceans, Australia is separated from Asia by the Arafura and Timor seas, with the Coral Sea lying off the Queensland coast, and the Tasman Sea lying between Australia and New Zealand. The world's smallest continent and sixth largest country by total area, Australia—owing to its size and isolation—is often dubbed the "island continent", and is sometimes considered the world's largest island. Australia has 34,218 kilometres of coastline (excluding all offshore islands) and claims an extensive Exclusive Economic Zone of 8,148,250 square kilometres (3,146,060 sq mi). This exclusive economic zone does not include the Australian Antarctic Territory. Apart from Macquarie Island, Australia lies between latitudes 9° and 44°S, and longitudes 112° and 154°E.
The Great Barrier Reef, the world's largest coral reef, lies a short distance off the north-east coast and extends for over 2,000 kilometres. Mount Augustus, claimed to be the world's largest monolith, is located in Western Australia. At 2,228 metres, Mount Kosciuszko on the Great Dividing Range is the highest mountain on the Australian mainland. Even taller are Mawson Peak (at 2,745 metres or 9,006 feet), on the remote Australian territory of Heard Island, and, in the Australian Antarctic Territory, Mount McClintock and Mount Menzies, at 3,492 metres and 3,355 metres respectively.
Australia's size gives it a wide variety of landscapes, with tropical rainforests in the north-east, mountain ranges in the south-east, south-west and east, and dry desert in the centre.[100] The desert or semi-arid land commonly known as the outback makes up by far the largest portion of land.[101] Australia is the driest inhabited continent; its annual rainfall averaged over continental area is less than 500 mm. The population density, 2.8 inhabitants per square kilometre, is among the lowest in the world, although a large proportion of the population lives along the temperate south-eastern coastline.
Although most of Australia is semi-arid or desert, it includes a diverse range of habitats from alpine heaths to tropical rainforests. Fungi typify that diversity; an estimated 250,000 species—of which only 5% have been described—occur in Australia. Because of the continent's great age, extremely variable weather patterns, and long-term geographic isolation, much of Australia's biota is unique. About 85% of flowering plants, 84% of mammals, more than 45% of birds, and 89% of in-shore, temperate-zone fish are endemic. Australia has the greatest number of reptiles of any country, with 755 species. Besides Antarctica, Australia is the only continent that developed without feline species. Feral cats may have been introduced in the 17th century by Dutch shipwrecks, and later in the 18th century by European settlers. They are now considered a major factor in the decline and extinction of many vulnerable and endangered native species.

Natural Resources

Australia's natural resources include iron ore, lead, diamonds, rutile, zinc, zirconium, gold, uranium, aluminium etc.

Type

National Territory

Population

42,149,963