Today is Election Day here in Australia where we vote on who will be the next Prime Minister of Australia, our current PM, Anthony Albanese or Peter Dutton. I’m no fan of either but I will vote by putting my pencil to paper and I will have my say and not do a “Donkey Vote” with putting something not serious on my voting slips, as too many people do because they don’t care who gets the job.

For those who give “Donkey Votes”, don’t complain about who wins or about the way the country is run as you were given the opportunity to have your say but you opted to throw it away by not voting seriously.

In Australia, it’s compulsory to vote for every Australian citizen over the age of 18 years old. Okay, it is a pain in the butt to go to the Voting booth at some point during the day but I do it because I want to have my say.

Many voting places have “sausage sizzles”, sausages cooked on a barbecue for voters to enjoy while lining up to vote. It’s a great way to have a fundraiser as many voting places are at schools. You got to have a “Democracy Sausage” if the place you go to vote have them.

Our main political parties, The Australian Labor Party aka Labor and The Liberal Party of Australia aka The Libs, they elect a leader to represent the Party within the parties, the voters do not elect the Leaders, unlike the US political system. Australia follows the UK political system.

On voting day in the Federal elections, we choose the Leader of the party to become the Prime Minister. We also choose who will be in the Upper House of Parliament from choosing the local Members of Parliament.

Many minor parties have their representatives as well for people to vote for, especially those who don’t like the two main parties but this is the rub, people don’t consider who those parties give their preferential votes to, as most minor parties will give their preferential votes to one of the two major parties.

The other thing that voting for the minor parties does, is it gives the representative from those minor parties a seat in the Upper House. The people from the minor parties, they prevent the major parties from being able to run the country properly as they have their own agendas and their own constituents they represent.

If there is a hung parliament, with no clear leader in front between the Labor and Liberal parties, then the representative from the minor party with the most votes gets the opportunity to decide who the winner will be and give their votes to that person.

When that happens, the major parties are unable to run the country properly because there isn’t a majority representation of Labor or Liberal members in the seats of Parliament house.

I prefer our system of Government however as we just have to choose the party and not the person to run the party.

So regardless of who you vote for today, make sure you make your vote count and have your say.

Until next time

Kaye