In ancient Athens when the population was small, it was possible for all free citizens to have a direct say in decision-making.

Governments today make decisions for millions of people. It is not practical to have all these people helping to make decisions directly.

Australia (and each state) is broken up into areas with about the same number of voters. These are called electorates. In each electorate, the voters elect one person to represent their beliefs, attitudes, opinions and points of view in Parliament. This person, the Member of Parliament, represents them and their ideas as best he or she can.

Members of Parliament usually belong to a political party. The political party with the most Members of Parliament in the Lower House (House of Representatives in Canberra, the Legislative Assembly in Victoria) after the election forms the government. It represents the majority of voters in the country or state and their views, ideas and opinions.

This is called representative government.

If you want to find out more about representative government:

• http://australianpolitics.com/democracy/terms/representative-government.shtml

Representative democracy at:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representative_democracy
• http://www.ozpolitics.info

• Democracy
• Government
• Representative government
• Responsible government
• Self-government
• Structure of responsible government
• Towards responsible government
• The Constitution
• Lucy Bell
• Thomas Henty
• William Barak
• Elias Andrews
• John Chandler
• Frederick Thomas Sargood
• William Foster Stawell
• Acts of Parliament about Voting and becoming an MP
• Voting systems
• Acts relating to land use and care
• Consolidation Acts
• Land Acts in Victoria
• The Chaffey Agreement