After all, in some countries, people have died to earn the right to vote.  In some countries, it is still very risky business just going to a polling place! If voting were not compulsory in Australia, we would be too lazy to get up off our backsides and go to the poll, but would spend the next 2 years and 364 days wingeing about ‘the pollies!’

So spend less time complaining about it, and a bit more time researching and thinking about who will receive your tick on the day.

Oh, and by the way – our country makes it very easy to vote, everything from postal votes to early polling, absentee voting: really, there is very little excuse not to have your say.  And, if you don’t have your say at the time, then really, what right do you have to complain?

Yes…it is a bit complicated, but to paraphrase our chameleon-like prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, there has never been a better time to be a voter in a free and democratic society.  With the amount of information available, especially with the internet, we have so much information available at our fingertips, there is simply no excuse to say we don’t know what parties stand for.

And, we have to remember, that apart from Independents, we elect Parties, not Prime Ministers.  This is not America.

I have done some research this year, and can tell you also, that you are not going to get everything you want in one party.  So you are going to have to decide what is most important to YOU, and make your decision based on this.  Also, being in a remote country area, if we rely on the free media, we are going to be inundated with info about candidates who have nothing to do with our immediate area – so, time to be pro active and work with Mr Google!  Paid advertising is useless in terms of gaining information, it’s mostly slogans and slagging off opposing parties – so no use at all!

Here’s what I did.  First of all, go to the AEC (Australian Electoral Commission) website, they have scads of info, including how to vote early, absentee and so on; but you can also see every contender for House of Reps, and Senate, and of course, you can then go from there to see what each of the Parties represent.  And there are a lot.  I counted 39, but that was on first count, and I did not go back again, that was enough!  I did look them all up though, and eliminated lots of them with my own personal elimination system!

The most wide reaching filter was the “Redneck” criterion.  This eliminated a lot of contenders for me, including dodgy and far right attitudes to guns, immigration; climate change deniers; and those who advocate privatisation of certain public services.

The second major filter for me was the market vs state criterion – where facilities I regard should be provided by the state regardless of the $ bottom line were not supported by the party in question…also sorted out a few parties…but there were grey areas here.

This system worked best for me in the Senate voting, so a choice of 6 boxes is not so hard, as there is lots of choice (at least 39, remember).  The Reps voting is more problematic, as there is less choice (only 5 in the Mallee), just the old parties and no inspiring Independents: so 2 Redneck parties(Citizens Electoral Council, Rise Up Australia), Greens (who have no hope here), and of course Labour and Nationals.

For me, the issues that matter most are Education, Health, Public Transport, and overall, the kind of infrastructure that supports our nation with a far-flung population in remote communities.

Caring about the latter is deeply unsatisfying, as most State Governments don’t seem to acknowledge anything much further afield than 100k from the state capital CBDs, so this is why I made my single issue choice.

This was hard, as I care very much about our treatment of asylum seekers, about our commercialisation of education and health in this country, about our lack of regard for those who serve us in the community, such as teachers, police, firefighters, and so on.  I also care very much about the poor quality of our fragmented national rail system, and the failure to acknowledge it as a way to bring our remote country together, and to take the pressure and cost off maintaining our thousands of kilometres of country roads.

In the end, I choose to vote for what I see as the single most important piece of infrastructure to adopt to enhance our country and prepare it for the future.  That is, the NBN as originally devised by Mike Quigley,  a state of the art network, to bring us up to an International standard.  This would be one of the best things we could do for this remote country, and the generations to come.  For health and education delivery, for international and domestic business and trade.  I hate the idea of investing in the mangled and compromised version of NBN that is now being put into train.

So, hop to it, get down with Mr Google, and avoid the rush by voting early at the local booth 116 8th St Mildura.  And, if you know someone whose first language is not English, and needs to vote, help them to the AEC website, which is available in many languages!  Happy Voting! (And NO whinging!)