Civics Class!

Last Friday, January 12, we went on a school trip to visit Victorian State Parliament. Victoria is the Australian state in which Melbourne is located. Parliament is where the laws get made. As you may recall from an earlier post, Australia has decided to name its legislative houses "Parliament," following the British model, but has adopted the American names for the separate houses within Parliament, namely, the House of Represenatives and the Senate. Why? Nobody knows.

The Premier of Victoria is actually the Leader of the House, and not a separate entity or branch of government (therefore the Executive is all mixed up with the Legislature... oooh, lookit me all learnin' and stuff). He has most of the political power in the state, and is the equivalent to the Prime Minister of Australia (who is the Leader of the House of the Australian Parliament). The Governor of Victoria, like the Governor General of Australia is in reality a formal title with little real power. But Australians seems to enjoy their traditions and conventions. Plus, the Governor of Vic gets to live in the Royal Botanic Gardens.

Here is a picture of the main lobby area of Parliament. There is a statue of Queen Victoria (who topped out at about 4'11") in the center, watching over everything. The Parliament house was built during the wonderfully bountiful gold rush of Australia (the California gold rush couldn't hold a candle to the Aussie version). As a result, the Parliament building contains something like $3million (not sure if this is AUD or USD) worth of 23 karat gold leaf detailing. The chambers of the House and Senate as well as the Library practically glittered with the stuff. Despite the abundance of gold leaf, the interior decorator of Parliament managed to keep the result from being tacky or reminiscent of Liberace. Good job, Victoria!

Here are some fun facts we learned on our trip. Victoria is the first (in the world) to:

- Make seatbelt wearing compulsory

- Have secret ballots

- Enact DUI testing on the road (both for drunkeness and drug use)

However, NYC has Vicky all beat when it comes to banning smoking in bars and restaurants. Victoria is just now getting that legislation through.