In Australia there are basically two political movements - Labor and the conservative coalitions. Both are conservative, but let's leave that out of it for the moment.

The Australian Labor Party, as their name indicates, tends towards the left. The party itself was actually founded after the industrial struggles of the 1890s (the world's first Labor government was in Queensland in the 1890s - it lasted a week).

The coalition is made up of the Liberal Party of Australia, which is generally regarded as sympathetic to big businees, and the National Party, which started out in life as the Country Prty representing farming, grazing, and other rural interests (Yanks, compare it with the Grange parties of the late 19th and early 20th centuries). Effectively, the Liberals have a large majority of coalition seats, but occasionally the National tail does get to wag the Liberal dog.

Labor have a long-held policy of never entering into coalition, but their resolve has never been tested on this point. If it came down to a choice of being in Opposition or being in power with the support of one of the fringe parties, I hope they would be pragmatic.

The constitutional crisis in Australia that bears comparison with the Canadian situation occurred in 1975, when the Governor-General, Sir John Kerr, dismissed the Labor government under Gough Whitlam. The point was that at the time, Labor could command a vote of confidence in the House of Representatives (the lower house of the Parliament), but had crucial Budget legislation blocked in the Senate (the upper house) where it did not have a majority.

Instead of observing the constitutional convention of taking the advice of the party that could command the confidence of the lower house, Kerr dismissed Whitlam and appointed Malcolm Fraser, leader of the Liberal Party, as caretaker Prime Minister pending a general election.

This is a very brief resume of the events of 1975 - there have been several books written and television series made about it, and it will keep being churned up for a slong as anyone can foresee.

The great difference in Canada (as far as I can see) is that the Governor-General there seems to be prepared to go along with whoever has the confidence of the lower house.