In June 1999, Australian Prime Minister John Howard won parliamentary approval of major tax changes that had been the centerpiece of his conservative coalition government s 1998 election campaign. The British claimed Australia in 1770. In January 1901, six states gained independence as the Commonwealth of Australia, adopting the Northern Territory and the capital territory of Canberra as territorial units in 1911. The queen of England is the head of state in this parliamentary democracy.
Executive power is vested in a cabinet headed by a prime minister.
Beginning in 1983, Labor, under Bob Hawke and later Paul Keating, began cutting tariffs, deregulating financial markets, and privatizing transport, telecommunications, and utilities. By the 1996 elections, polls showed many Australians concerned with high unemployment and other costs of restructuring. During his first term, Premier John Howard of the Liberal Party faced political and social issues that sharpened cleavages between rural and urban interests. In April 1998, the government and farmers groups backed a major stevedoring company s dismissal of some 1,400 dockworkers in one of Australia s largest and most confrontational labor disputes in decades. A court ordered the workers reinstated.