True!
FWIW policy on limiting campaign spending isn’t really tied to the “system”, so much as constitutional scope of legislative power in a given country + what policies a country has decided to implement. Many non-parliamentary systems have strict campaign limits–in fact I think the United States is one of the only OECD countries that doesn’t have meaningful limits to campaign expenditure.
This looks like a fairly good general overview:
eh, it seems a bit off in its descriptions:
Those are both federal parliamentary democracies, with the Queen as head of state (subject to the Australian debate on that term). Why are they listed as separate examples? And why is Australia listed as unique?
And what’s the difference between those two and this one?
And why is Malaysia listed separately, as different from Canada and Australia?
Please lips, don’t unpurse!
I’ll confess to being befuddled at the distinctions
I thought Australia was a “Federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy”.
Though we abbreviate the term to constitutional monarchy.
For Malaysia, the author may be referring to the fact that the monarchy is elective. That is certainly unusual, but if that’s what they’re getting at, it is not apparent from their summary.
I freely concede that Australia is unique in many ways. 
Possibly referring to QEII being our head of state as Queen of Australia, separate to her role as Queen of England. This does leave open the possibility that if we don’t like Charles we can choose our own next queen, such as that one from Norway, or Edna Everidge or our Kylie.
I agree though, I’m not sure what distinction is being highlighted.
Unless AUS wants to leave the Commonwealth I don’t believe choosing our own sovereign is really an option. And based on the posted definitions I wouldn’t think these guys are constitutional experts on the matter. But we can bore The Dope rigid discussing that in another thread.
I apologise for posting that link on the basis of a skim-read. I should have thought a bit more about it. On reflection its authors seem to be a bit hung up on the status of monarchies in different systems, which is indeed beside the point of the OP’s question.
I must say, I don’t know of a handy compare-and-contrast manual. The UK Parliament’s own website explains how it works, but eithout much exploration of the underlying assumptions and general culture.
A number of books in this list touch on the question as part of other topics:
Stuff’n nonsense.
You just have a sharper eyed audience than you’d typically find on a US message board.
Back on the primer, could we post how what the US call primaries are conducted in your jurisdictions?
Another area would be on the different operations of the committee structures.
The point about primaries has, I think, been covered above for Westminster- type systems: it’s all up to each party, and the public electoral administrations aren’t involved. When it goes out to a ballot of all party members, I believe most will delegate the administration and counting to a respected independent company:
As for committees, here’s what our Parliament website has to say about it:
Australia is unique because it has a powerful upper house, modeled on the US, that can block supply. Also known as the Washminster System. Also Australia can become a republic while staying in the Commonwealth of Nations, that’s been allowed since 1950 and these days most members are republics.
nm. nm. nm. nm. nm.
In Canada, there will be considerable variation from party to party, province to province, provincial party to federal party.
Bottom line, though, the candidate selection process, whether for MLA or MP elections, or for party leaderships, are all determined by the parties themselves. Increasingly, elections laws regulate the financial spending of parties for their party selection processes, but the nomination process is for the parties.
Most major parties now will vet potential candidates thoroughly. To participate in the nomination process, you have to provide detailed information to the party. Things like social media history, criminal records, past work experience, education, previous political experience, all have to be disclosed. Some parties have a reputation for being more selective than others in who they will accept (federal Liberals, for example). So there is a pre-nomination process in the backrooms.
If a potential candidate clears that hurdle, then there is a vote run by the local party organization in the district. Voting is usually in person, and only party members who have purchased their memberships before a certain cut-off date are eligible to vote. Parties increasingly are also requiring each member to pay for their own membership, by cheque/e-transfer/credit card, that clearly shows they are paying their own way, not by one of the candidates.
The voting is usually at a public meeting of the party, and can go through several ballots, depending on the number of candidates. Or, it can be done in a couple of ballots. Local politicking is key. I know of one case at the provincial level where there was a popular local candidate for the party nomination, but who failed in the get-out-the-vote process; anecdotally, many of his supporters were so confident he would win that they didn’t bother coming out. He didn’t win.
In another local nomination for a federal riding, there were two main candidates for the nomination, and both were heavyweights in the national party. So many memberships were sold that the party rented the local performing arts / concert hall so they could accommodate everyone. Only party members and news media were admitted. I know of one person who didn’t support that party, but bought a party membership, “just so I can get in and watch the shenanigans!”
Leadership votes vary tremendously. At the federal level, the two main parties both have weighted votes. Candidates have to win, not just the membership vote, but a complicated points system for each riding, because both those parties want to have a leader who can demonstrate broad national appeal.
Other parties use a “one member, one vote” system, because they don’t think the weighted vote concept is fair.
Either way, most parties have ditched the traditional convention, and now use mail-in or electronic ballots, with a single transferable vote process. I think some may still use rounds of balloting, not STF, but all electronic or a combination of electronic and in person voting.
In the UK, to be a candidate to be an MP, you’d have to be on the party’s approved list (which gets you supportive advice and training); to get selected for a particular constituency, it would help to have a track record of successful campaigning and service as a local councillor, and/or in some worthy social/political issue and/or to be favoured by the national party organisation as a future star.
But different constituency organisations have their own quirks and priorities, just as in other countries, I suppose.
For sitting MPs, there isn’t necessarily an automatic re-selection process - nor automatic re-adoption if they’ve annoyed enough people in the constituency. This has been a hot issue in the Labour Party over the years, with the left all for mandatory re-selection of all MPs, and the moderates opposed. My own local MP has just been signed off work medically, apparently due to stress from social media threats and hostility connected with a possible “trigger ballot” of party members to decide whether she should go through re-selection.
At the lower levels of local government, it can sometimes be a question (particularly for the smaller parties) of twisting arms to get people to stand, if only as “paper” candidates.
One big difference for party leaders in Canada is that they don’t have to run for the leadership every single election. As discussed above, some parties have tossed their leaders after very short periods of time, because they lost an election, or for some other reason. But if the leader is popular, and manages to avoid personal blame for a poor election performance, they can continue as leader across multiple elections.
A big effect of this is that we don’t have the phenomenon of Candidates A and B attacking each other in the primary leading up to an election, and then suddenly trying to act all friendly with each other in the general election. How much of the last few decades of US politics would be different if you hadn’t had the very public Hillary vs Obama, or Hillary vs. Bernie smackdown fights? Remember “Party Unity My Ass”?
We get a bit of that, but as with the current Conservative leadership contest, by the time there’s another general election called (likely 3+ years from now), all that infighting will have been largely forgotten.
The Australian primaries (known as preselection) is a close parallel to the Canadian.
Each electorate will have a local branch of the political party who will select their candidate. The sole question is who is considered the best candidate to win (though what criteria and whether the logic is true or flawed is an intensely political determination) with compulsory voting “get out the vote” isn’t a factor. But obviously the candidate needs to “excite” the party faithful so they get out to support the logistics of the candidacy. But in addition to this the state party will try to have influence and the federal party might decide to parachute in a high profile candidate of their choice. The degree of rivalry depends on the win-ability of the seat. The locals always get their way if it’s a safe seat for the opposing party. Preselections are the least democratic part of the AUS democratic process.
As far as the leadership of the federal parliamentary party is concerned, there is always a full spill of positions after each election. In theory Candidate X could be prime minister, lead the campaign, win the election and then the elected parliamentarians caucus and chose somebody else as the new prime minister. That’s never happened, as far as I can recall never been contemplated, though it might have if the “Joh for PM” insurgence mentioned above had eventuated. Lose the election, on the other hand and almost certainly the baton will be passed on.
There is a distinction between LIBs and LABs when it comes to leadership. In the aftermath of the Rudd/Gilllard/Rudd political coups LAB leaders have party regulations which mean essentially a leader cannot be changed between elections. The parliamentary LIBs could, in theory, change their leader as Prime Minister or Opposition leader every couple of weeks.
I guess another big item for the primer is … Question Time.
Question Time comes in various permutations but in AUS @2pm every parliamentary sitting day, in both the House of Representatives and the Senate you have 1 hour of full televised questions without notice. There is an informal minimum of 14 questions though the average is closer to 19. The prime Minister, through the Leader of House Business can terminate QT by asking for further question to be placed on notice. Cutting QT short is seen as an admission of weakness.
Asked first by the opposition and alternatively from the government, opposition and cross benches if they have sufficient numbers. AUS ask questions directly, not as supplementaries as you have in the UK House of Commons. Supplementaries are allowed.
The government questions are typically stage managed with a backbencher asking a minister “tell us the wonderful (or necessary) things you have done”, termed a “Dorothy Dix”er after an American Q&A columnist . Unlike in the UK parliament , in AUS government questions are very rarely hostile.
The Opposition strategises questions, not necessarily targeting the Prime Minister, but hone in on areas of controversies, competency, impropriety or political division. The environment can be hostile, sometimes acrimonious as the Speaker tries to keep the debate within the Standing Orders. There ultimate sanction is the Ejecting of boisterous, unruly or dissenting members for a period of 24 hours by the process of naming. As the parliament votes to eject a member, and patently the government has a majority, only opposition members get named and ejected. 
It’s not not just questions without notice, as questions without answers. There are time limits, procedural questions, points of order and rulings on relevance. Providing a satisfactory answer is a fine line. To deliberately mislead the House is a matter of contempt and if sustained leads to resignation from parliament. To intentionally deflect the question, or reverse it, or answer some other question within the bounds of relevancy is fair game.
It is this degree of scrutiny amid political theatre that provides the circuit breaker which prevents the stratospheric rise of a populist with no experience in government. Several US Presidents would have been exemplary performers at the Despatch Box. Clinton, Obama, Reagan, Roosevelt. Some would have made a passable fist of it. Others would have been squished as grapes underfoot and consequently would not have bothered the conscience.
Also, Prime Ministers also don’t hide behind a press secretary as the primary government klaxon. It’s your government, buster. You sell the damn message.
The point being that, an aspiring political leader needs to demonstrate to their peers that they can handle the scrutiny, be on top of their brief, think on their feet, rouse the troops, demonstrate their competence for the task. The press and the pollsters have their say but it’s performance in Question Time which determines whether the other parliamentarians of your party will support you as their leader.
The consequence of this is that newly elected MPs cannot realistically aspire to party leadership in their first term. Rarely are first term MPs made ministers, let alone the major portfolios. Consequently the chances of an upstart populist Zaphod Beeblebrox candidate going from citizen to head of government by winning a single election are minimal. Major party leaders are almost without exception well known characters, to both the electorate and the parliament. Except for the formative years post Federation aspiring prime ministers usually have won a second (or many more) terms of office and served as a minister of Cabinet seniority.
It is true that the combination of legislative and executive powers in a parliament means that ministers are directly accountable to parliament, through mechanisms such as Question Time (and quite a bit of parliamentary business is about the executive implementation and and administration of law and policy).
But, as I recall, the gladiatorial point-scoring theatre of Prime Minister’s Questions that we see today at Westminster is relatively recent. Time was, I think, Prime Ministers could and did deflect questions to the relevant departmental ministers, and it questions were expected to be exactly that rather than disguised speeches.
In Norway who goes on a party list and in what order is decided by the party. In the large national parties local groups will decide who will go on the local list, as well as who will represent the local group at the county and national level and participate in selecting the lists at those levels. You only get to directly influence the make-up of a party you are a paying member of.
You could always create your own party though. It’s not unusual at the local level and there have been a few with a lot of local support who have managed to send a single representative to parliament. Some of these smaller parties will put celebrities on their lists to “make up the ranks”. These have no chance of getting elected, but journalists some times can be baited to ask a celebrity “Did you know you’ve been listed as a candidate for representative on behalf of the ‘No mainstream party is racist enough for me’ party?” and help the party get noticed.