2013 Australian Federal Election on 7 September 2013

Brief voting history of Australia

 

Australia has a democratic voting system, where Australian citizen’s vote for the Prime Minister. As Australia is still a part of the Commonwealth of Great Britain, they have a representative for them which holds the title of the Governor-General. She relates important factors to the Monarch of Great Britain, whom at this time is Queen Elizabeth II. Voting in Australia's federal elections has been compulsory, for citizens, since 1925.

What about those people who aren’t citizens?

However, people, such as me, who are not Australian Citizens, cannot vote. I am a permanent resident and don’t vote in elections in Australia. I’ve been asked many times over the years about voting, and sent the enrolment forms in error, why don’t vote? I don’t vote because I don’t believe that I SHOULD be made to vote. If I want to, that’s fine, I’ll vote, but why should I be made to vote? I want to have the flexibility to have that decision to vote or not. I hate having my hand forced on this subject, because it’s something important and I shouldn’t have to be rushing into a voting booth just to put my name down or rush into a booth to vote if I haven’t been able to do my research. 

Further, in Australia, you might be voting for a one of the lower types of parties – called the Greens or Democrats out of the many different options – and if they lose, which they will because they are the lower voted for option, and then they give “preferences” to either one or the other of the main parties.  For instance, if you are voting for one of the lower parties, when they don’t realize they won’t win, they give your vote to one of the others that you didn’t even vote for! To me that just doesn’t seem correct or right.

The third and last reason is why should I vote for someone who runs things here, but then has to report everything back to a representative of another government that’s on another continent? That sounds even screwier than my vote going to someone I didn’t even vote for. 

I do have to respect Australian people don’t get a choice the matter – the must vote, so they do the best they can for whomever is running. Good luck I always wish of them. 

Australia’s Current Election

On Sunday, 11 August 2013, Prime Minister of Australia, Kevin Rudd had gone to see the Governor-General to trigger a Federal Election for the Australian people. This election will be held Saturday 7 September 2013 across Australia.  You can click on this statement, for more information on the timeline or election information.

At the present time, there are 2 major front runners of the 2 main parties in Australia – Kevin Rudd and Anthony (Tony) Abbott.

Here is a small 90 second video explaining Australia’s Federal Election.

There has been much discussion leading up to the election about main topics of concern for people living in Australia. These are:

• Education – which will cover Gonski review, and reasons why not to cut back on any education spending.

• Economy management - which will cover job security, cost of living, wages of ministers, wasting  of federal monies.

• Infrastructure – which will cover why to keep and increase spending on roads and rail.

• Health – which will cover aged care, federal funding for dentists for everyone, disability scheme, and Medicare.

• Immigration – which will cover boats, border security and asylum-seekers.

Another issue that has been raised is trust. This fits in each and every topic, so I will cover this in each one. 

 Online voting

Many people can take part in many of the online voting options by downloading the application or app for the program they are watching. An example for this would be the 7 News app for watching tonight’s debate on 7Mate. You open the app and on the bottom it says voting and you click on that and a question appears. You keep clicking on your opinion and this will be reflected on the screen. I have trialled this app in the past weeks and it does work.

Future Blogs

For the next few weeks – until the election on 7 September- I’ll be covering each of these topics.

Next week’s topics to be covered will be next week Australian Federal Election 2013 – My View on- Education & Economy Management, so come back then when I tackle these 2 topics. 

Did I miss a topic that you want covered? If so, let me know! If you have any other question regarding the electoral process, let me know and I’ll try and explain – even if I have to look it up.