The continent of Australia, with the island of Tasmania (which is a state of Australia) is approximately equal in area to the United States (not including Alaska and Hawaii). Mountain ranges run from north to south along the east coast, reaching their highest point in Mount Kosciusko. The western half of the continent is occupied by a desert plateau that rises into barren rolling hills near the west coast (Perth).  It includes the Great Victoria Desert to the south and the Great Sandy Desert to the north. The Great Barrier Reef, lies along the northeast coast of Queensland, and the island of Tasmania  is off the southeast coast of Australia.

The government is a democracy. The symbolic power is vested in the British monarch, who is represented throughout Australia by the governor-general.

Dutch, Portuguese, and Spanish ships sighted Australia in the 17th century; the Dutch landed at the Gulf of Carpentaria in 1606.  In 1616 the territory became known as New Holland. The British arrived in 1688, but it was not until Captain James Cook's voyage in 1770 that Great Britain claimed possession of the vast island, calling it New South Wales. A British penal colony was set up at Port Jackson (which is now “Sydney") in 1788, and about 161,000 English convicts were settled there until the system was suspended in 1839.

The free settlers established six colonies: New South Wales (1786), Tasmania (then Van Diemen's Land ) (1825), Western Australia (1829), South Australia (1834), Victoria (1851), and Queensland  (1859). The gold rushes attracted settlers, as did the mining of other minerals. Sheep farming and grain soon became important to the economic structure. The six colonies eventually became states and in 1901 federated into the Commonwealth of Australia with a constitution that incorporated British parliamentary and U.S. federal traditions. Australia became known for its liberal legislation: free compulsory education, protected trade unionism with industrial conciliation and arbitration, the secret ballot, women's suffrage, maternity allowances, and sickness and old-age pensions, and we wont discuss the dole.

Australia fought side by side with Britain in World War I, and with the Australia and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) in the Dardanelle’s campaign (1915). The participation in World War II brought Australia closer to America. Parliamentary power in the second half of the 20th century shifted between three political parties: the Australian Labour Party, the Liberal Party, and the National Party. Australia relaxed its discriminatory immigration laws in the 1960s and 1970s, which favored Northern Europeans. In March of 1996 the opposition Liberal Party–National Party coalition easily won the national elections, removing the Labour Party after being in power for 13 years.  Pressure from the new, conservative One Nation Party threatened to reduce the gains made by Aborigines and to limit immigration. Aboriginal movements had grown in the 1960s that gained full citizenship and improved education for the country's poorest group of inhabitants.

In September of 1999, Australia led the international peacekeeping force sent to restore order in East Timor, Indonesia. Pro-Indonesian militias had begun massacring civilians following a UN sponsored referendum that overwhelmingly called for East Timor 's independence.

In November of 1999, Australia''s 11.6 million voters rejected a referendum that would have ended Australia's formal allegiance to the British Crown. The referendum would have replaced the British governor-general with an Australian president chosen by Parliament. Although the vast majority of Australians do not consider themselves monarchists, they rejected the referendum because it did not provide for direct, popular elections but gave parliament the power to select the power. In the year 2000, Mr. Howard (the Prime Minister) instituted a new tax system, lowering income and corporate taxes, and adding sales taxes on goods and services. Sydney hosted the 2000 Summer Olympic games from Sept. 15–Oct.1, 2000. John Howard won a third term of office in November of 2001. His policy against illegal immigration was believed to have cemented his victory.

Brief background history: Australia became a commonwealth of the British Empire in 1901. It was able to take advantage of its natural resources and to rapidly develop its agricultural and manufacturing industries and to also make a major contribution to the British effort in World Wars I and II. The long-term concerns include pollution, primarily depletion of the ozone layer, and the management and conservation of coastal areas, especially the Great Barrier Reef . A referendum to change Australia 's status, from a commonwealth headed by the British monarch to an independent republic, was defeated in 1999.