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According to the Constitution, the Governor-General is the Queen's official representative in Australia.

The Constitution gives the Governor-General a number of very significant powers. She can summon and prorogue (suspend) parliament; she can appoint ministers; she is commander-in-chief of the armed forces, she can issue writes for an election - either of the House of Representatives, or, in special circumstances, both Houses of Parliament.

As part of her power to appoint ministers, the Governor-General appoints the Prime Minister and the other members of the Cabinet.

Although the Constitution gives the Governor-General all of these powers, she is expected not to exercise them except when "advised" (in reality ordered) to, by the Prime Minister. For example, the Governor-General will not call an election unless the Prime Minister advises her to. When one Prime Minister loses the election, he will advise her to appoint a new Prime Minister, who is, except in very rare circumstances, the leader of the party with majority support in the House of Representatives.

This is because the Prime Minister has a democratic mandate as the leader of a political party in Parliament, while the Governor-General is not part of Parliament and is not elected by anybody.

The Governor-General will only intervene in politics (for example, to sack the Prime Minister) if there is some sort of crisis in government. The one time when a Governor-General used his own initiative to sack a Prime Minister was in November 1975, and the dismissal of Gough Whitlam. This action was hugely controversial both then and now.

In practice, the Governor-General simply approves the actions that the Prime Minister and her other Ministers recommend. She spends most of her time attending official functions - eg. the opening of new schools, awards ceremonies, etc.

The Governor General is the representative of the queen in Canada. The Queen's decisions go through her representative and will be the ultimate factor in passing any bills.

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Q: What is the role of the governor general?
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Which governor-general? The governor-general of Canada is in a different position than the governor-general of Australia.


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