Elections matter. A lot.
Voter help - maybe?
Australia is coming under increasing political advertising in various guises.
If you did not already know you will realise an Australian election is looming… The date is in the hands of Mr Anthony Albanese, Prime Minister of Australia. Mr Albanese will eventually have a Writ issued by the Governor-General. Discipline is very likely to hold, I think, and the PM will be the official (Labor) Government voice to Australia’s electors in 2025.
Thereafter we will have our 48th Parliament, that is, the 48th federal Parliament. Yes, 48 since 1901!
I like our system of parliamentary election. There is a longish and laudable history. Not least I like the "Australian ballot", which is about the privacy of your vote. That same privacy rule means you must not write your name on your ballot paper, lest it be deemed invalid and joins the informal total. (You would never know, of course; neither would anyone else know the vote that failed was yours.)
Our system, with all its flaws, has integrity and is transparent and accountable. (See previous post.)
Actually I like our systems of parliamentary elections! Note the plural.
I do not like our chaotic situation with electors left in the dark. We have three kinds of elections in each State of the Commonwealth.
The federal system is consistent across the nation. The federal elections are administered by a separate federal bureaucracy, the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC).
Australian elections are carried out by a very large temporary (“seasonal”) workforce of "election officials". The AEC has a large permanent staff and a large Commonwealth-size budget. Its staff are effectively or actually part of the permanent Commonwealth Public Service. Many staff are located in Canberra and the AEC exercises a lot of central control over the entire administration, Returning Officers notwithstanding!
Local federal electorates are called Divisions. In previous eras the Commonwealth maintained offices in the Division, a Divisional Returning Office(r), and thus had a couple of staff relatively close to the electors on the Division roll. (Use of local sites has been partially abandoned by the AEC, and I deplore that fact.)
The other electoral systems (State) came first and have their own (longer) proud history and do not aim to replicate the “new kid on the block”, nor each other. So, we have different systems, as people who relocate interstate find out eventually.
As an example of differences: Victoria readily places voters aged 70 and over on their Registered General Postal Voter list. The Commonwealth does not agree and sticks with rigid rejection rules, even though they may not be energetically enforced. These situations flow from the history combined with the inaction of the recent members of the respective parliament. (The rules can only be changed by Act of Parliament.)
A little story to illustrate the robust individuality of the States: in 1877 the new and vital international telegraph was being connected from South Australia to Perth. The works met at Eucla on the SA/WA border. The necessary telegraph station was built, but it was a dual station. The wires were definitely not joined! Messages for transmission were received and passed through a partition to the opposite officer employed by the other State. (That ended with Federation and the Commonwealth taking over.)
Below I will point you to a very fine illustrated explanatory electoral document produced by the AEC for teachers. It probably gives you more info than you want, including the Commonwealth's historical background, but you may skip stuff. (The AEC website also gives access to authoritative Factsheets.) I would like every Australian elector to read the AEC magazine.
The AEC booklet does not examine different kinds of votes: "ordinary" and "early" and "absent" and "provisional". Many voters now "cast their ballot" before "polling day". (That trend has surely been fostered by the very easy to use and easily misunderstood procedure introduced by the Commonwealth. (When/if a voter in a line is asked, are you entitled to vote early today, what other answer is likely?)
An excellent information source is the Parliamentary Education Office of the Australian Parliament.
Note that everything about the Australian federal election is compulsory. That includes numbering every square on the (small) House of Representatives ballot paper. (State systems, eg NSW, may use optional preferential in their own elections.) Every ballot paper has the necessary instructions. There is, of course, no possible "enforcement" of every square; however, in a federal election, any failure to number every box makes your attempted lower house vote, invalid ("informal"). The Senate election has its own rules.
The AEC does not try to explain the systems of each State in Australia. They acknowledge but leave to the respective State to explain. (I dare say the States do.)
Australian Election 2025: You are an elector? For whom will you vote? Where will you write "1"? That is your question and I certainly do not suggest any answer. Limited though it is, the power is yours and yours alone. No doubt there are political parties and lobbyists keen to tell you exactly how to fill your boxes.
And, you may ask, what has this post to do with “Jesussaviour 4unme”? I have posted previously on this. The power to rule ought to be used rightly. That is, in line with God’s intention, for which we pray. The power to rule lies with voters during an election, for the voters choose who will govern.
"Perhaps?": You are an Australian elector and you have read to here? I hope now that you will also look over the AEC magazine (see below) and feel assured you have a reasonable grasp of what this whole election business is about. I think you find the story of interest, limited as it is. You can see how your important job fits into the whole Australian picture and into our story. That the choice is more than a chore you have to do. The elections we have to have. The decision you have to make.
Elections do matter. Your vote matters. The election is a prayer topic, and thereafter we know what do do. If you are one of my numerous readers from elsewhere (welcome!), then I hope you have found this of interest. I think the principles apply broadly, and certainly do apply to all of us the words penned in an ancient, undemocratic, empire:
First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for everyone, for kings and all who are in high positions, so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity. This is right and acceptable before God our Savior (1 Timothy 2:1-3 NRSVUE).
Those in high positions may be greedy, liars, rapists, thieves, bullies, deniers of truth, deceivers, abusers, hating and hateful? So it was. So it is. How remarkable that we can still ask God and even give thanks!
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