Overview of government

Australia is a democracy with three levels of government, each with its own responsibilities:

• federal;
• state and territory (six state governments and two self-governing territories); and
• local.

Each federal, state, and territory level of government has three arms — a legislature responsible for passing new laws, an executive responsible for carrying out the laws, and a judiciary responsible for interpreting and enforcing laws.

The division of power between federal and state governments is laid out in the Australian Constitution.