page_title: Oceania
section_title: Australia
hierarchical_section_title: Oceania / Politics / Australia
caption_attribution_description: Afrikaans: Koningin Elizabeth II van die Verenigde Koninkryk. Die foto is geneem tydens 'n besoek deur haar aan die NASA se Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, VSA. English: Her Majesty Queen, aged 81, of the United Kingdom. Photo taken during a visit in NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. Greenbelt, Maryland, USA. Original Caption from NASA: “Queen Elizabeth II greets employees on her walk from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center mission control to a reception in the center’s main auditorium in Greenbelt, Maryland where she was presented with a framed Hubble image by Congressman Steny Hoyer and Senator Barbara Mikulski. Queen Elizabeth II and her husband, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, visited the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center as one of the last stops on their six-day United States visit.” Français&#160;: La Reine Élisabeth II du Royaume-Uni. Photo prise au cours d'une visite du Goddard Space Flight Center de la NASA, à Greenbelt, dans le Maryland (États-Unis).
context_page_description: Oceania is a geographic region that includes Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia. Spanning the eastern and western hemispheres, Oceania has a land area of 8,525,989 square kilometres and a population of over 41 million. When compared to continents, the region of Oceania is the smallest in land area and the second smallest in population after Antarctica.
  Oceania has a diverse mix of economies from the highly developed and globally competitive financial markets of Australia and New Zealand, which rank high in quality of life and human development index, to the much less developed economies that belong to countries such as Kiribati and Tuvalu, while also including medium-sized economies of Pacific islands such as Palau, Fiji and Tonga. The largest and most populous country in Oceania is Australia, with Sydney being the largest city of both Oceania and Australia.
  The first settlers of Australia, New Guinea, and the large islands just to the east arrived more than 60,000 years ago. Oceania was first explored by Europeans from the 16th century onward.
context_section_description: Australia is a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy with Elizabeth II at its apex as the Queen of Australia, a role that is distinct from her position as monarch of the other Commonwealth realms. The Queen 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 her ministers. There are two major political groups that usually form government, federally and in the states: the Australian Labor Party and the Coalition which is a formal grouping of the Liberal Party and its minor partner, the National Party. Within Australian political culture, the Coalition is considered centre-right and the Labor Party is considered centre-left. The Australian Defence Force is by far the largest military force in Oceania.
caption: Elizabeth is Head of the Commonwealth and Queen of five Oceanian countries: Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Tuvalu.
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