There’s no escaping the fact that an election is coming. This provides a great opportunity to talk with our kids about how our democracy works. Here’s how you could answer your kids’ questions.

Who is the government?

The ‘government’ is a group of ordinary people who have the responsibility of leading our country. They make laws to help us live together in peace and safety, and they help and provide for people in different ways.

In Australia there are three levels of government: the local government looks after local concerns, like garbage collection and playgrounds; the state government manages bigger things like schools and hospitals; and the federal government looks after things that affect the whole country, like protecting Australia and representing us to the rest of the world. It also looks after ‘welfare’, which means giving money and services to help people in need.

The Bible says that we should respect our governments because they are ‘God’s servant for your good’, with authority from him to reward good and punish evil (Romans 13:1-7).

Is the government rich?

In Australia, most of the money that the government has comes from collecting ‘tax’. That is when we give a bit of the money we earn to the government so that it can do its job. It is the federal government that collects most of our tax money and decides how to spend it.

The Bible encourages us to pay the taxes we owe to the government, because it is being used to serve us (Romans 13:6–7).

Can the government do whatever it likes?

No. In Australia, we have a ‘Parliament’—a place where representatives from every part of Australia come together to talk and make decisions. The government is only made up of the representatives from one party or ‘team’—the one which has the most number of people in the Parliament. There are a few different ‘teams’: the red team, the blue team, the green team … and some newer teams like the orange and yellow ones. Each team has different ideas about the best way to run our country, relate to other countries and help people in need.

In the Parliament, the representatives from different teams discuss and debate the laws that the government wants to make or change. A law can only be passed if most people in the Parliament agree to it.

What is an election?

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