Voting  #
Monday, 16 Aug 2010 03:10PM
"The Australian people didn't vote for Julia Gillard, they voted for Kevin Rudd."

Unless you live in the electorate of Griffith in Brisbane it is unlikely you voted for Kevin Rudd. Only 43,957 people put Kevin Rudd first on their ballot paper (53.1%). This is fewer than the voters of Lalor, 57,208 (59.9%) of whom put Julia Gillard as first preference.

The same argument works for the Liberals. Those that voted Liberal arguably voted for John Howard (39,551, or 45.49% of Bennelong voters) as their leader, but instead they got Malcom Turnbull (Wentworth, 44,463 or 50.4%) and then Tony Abbott (Warringah, 46,398 or 54.5%).

More people voted for Bob Brown to join the Senate (39,266 Ticket Votes plus 17,293 first preference below-the-line votes) than any of the above.

Yes, I'm being deliberately ignorant and irritating...

Do you vote for your local member? Are they independent or will they blindly follow the policies of the political party of which they are a member? Or blindly follow the leader of the political party of which they are a member? Are they worthy of being the leader of the country, because it isn't completely unlikely that one day they will be.

Let us not forget who you preference.

You must approach each number you write in each box as a vote for that candidate. Do not assume that your second, third, forth preferences do not matter. They are as important as your first. Have you researched the other parties represented on your ballot paper? They may have policies you prefer over the two and a half major parties.

If you don't want to vote for anyone, do not "donkey vote" and randomly fill in the ballot paper. You will be guilty of a horrific crime against democracy. If anything, follow Mark Latham's advice as provided on 60 Minutes (which I won't repeat here, because doing so would be illegal).