We've managed to retain our enrollment in Federal elections from last time,
so we requested postal ballots and they arrived last Monday. I was quite
impressed with how quickly they arrived (the Australian Government keeps
exceeding my expectations, must be because the US Government has lowered
them so much). That said, they did manage to omit some envelope for
returning the ballot papers internationally, so we just mailed them to the
Australian Consulate in San Francisco instead.
We're still enrolled in the electorate of
Fraser. Interestingly, Bob McMullan isn't seeking reelection. I have no
idea if that is going to make any difference to the "safe Labor seat" status
of this electorate or not. I was once told that Canberra being a public
service town, tended to largely vote Labor.
Anyway, we've got some interesting minor party candidates for the House of
Representatives. We've got
the Secular
Party of Australia, which I haven't heard of before. They have a nice
looking website (if you overlook the spelling mistake in the URL) and I like
their policies, so I've decided to give Quintin
Phillips my first preference. He's keen on a light rail for Canberra,
which I think would be great.
My second preference I've given to the Greens' Indra Esguerra. I'd have given them
my first preference, except I'm told that the Greens blocked the Emissions
Trading Scheme stuff recently, because it wasn't strict enough.
That was a very dumb move in my opinion. Something is better than nothing,
especially in this regard.
I put Labor next, because as
much as I'd normally vote Liberal above Labor, I
think the Liberal party doesn't deserve to return from the wilderness just
yet. They got thrown out on their ear in the last election for a reason. I
also don't really find the prospect of Tony
Abbott as Prime Minister all that enamoring.
On to the Senate. I always vote "below the
line", because it's way more fun.
I gave my first preference to Kate
Lundy, because she's the greatest Minister for Broadband, Communications
and the Digital Economy that Australia's never had. Tangentially related:
Victoria, please sack that nimrod,
Stephen Conroy. If there was some way I could change my enrollment to
Victoria, so I could help, I'd be all over it.
I believe I gave my second and third preferences to the Greens candidates,
in no particular order, followed by the Democrats, because I
believe they should live again in the Senate. I think I then went for the
Independent candidate, followed by the remaining Labor candidate and the two
Liberal candidates.
But the basic theme that I'm trying to convey with the way I voted is that
I'm fairly disenchanted with both of the major parties. The Liberal party
completely imploded when it lost the last election, and I found they way
they backstabbed Malcolm Turnbull (and the ETS) quite disturbing. Until the
party big wigs stop being all denialist about climate change, they're not
getting my vote, I'll vote Green instead.
I also found the way the Labor party turfed out Kevin Rudd to be quite
disturbing. I'm seeing this trend in Australian politics where if you stick
to your guns on something necessary but politically unpopular, you can
expect a good old-fashioned backstabbing. I also not a fan of Labor's
factional system. I find that it tends to mean that the best man (or woman)
for the job doesn't get it. People say that the Liberal party is just as
bad, they're just not so open about it. That may well be the case, but I can
see it for a fact with Labor, and I don't like (to quote Pauline Hanson).
So I'd mainly be voting Green, but I decided to give this Secular Party a
bit of a run for its money.
Oh, and I'm also very pleased to see that the High
Court threw out that despicable legislation change that the Howard Liberal
Government brought in, which closed the electoral rolls to new registrations
24 hours after an election was called. That was the most underhanded
thing I've ever seen in Australian politics in my voting life.
