Politics

[G'day Mate]

Watch from 6:20 to 7:00 - incredible smackdown

[Yw-slayer]

The whole thing is a smackdown.

[drew]

So much winning!

[JoeW]

Dude that video is so funny.

"The only national emergency is that our president is an idiot."

That is so classic...I hope it's in future history books.

[Dicknose]

We have a federal election coming up (date unknown - yes, thats the most stupid part of our system) and one of the local members is Tony Abbott, ex prime minister (lost in an internal party fight) and a right wing remanent from a past age. He was one of the leading figures against same sex marriage - when his electorate was one of the areas most in favour - talk about "out of touch with your people". He is also very anti-climate change (as in anti doing anything about it)
Now the seat he is contesting is extremely safe - basically you would say his party (Liberal) would win this if they put a banana as their candidates (well who doesnt like bananas), but poor old Tony has gotten so out of touch with his local area that there is a massive campaign to get rid of him.

You see plenty of "vote Tony out" and "times up Tony" tshirts and people walking the streets to drum up support against him. Funny thing is that it is just that - get rid of him, not a particular "vote for this specific person against him"
Actually with our preferential voting that can work, they dont care who you vote for as #1, as long as your put pretty much everyone ahead of Tony (except maybe Labor - the left wing opposition)
Now its extremely unlikely Labor will win - but there is a couple of independents and one is real strong, she is a lawyer/barrister and a winter Olympic medalist (one of Australias first) - Zali Steggall. She is getting a fair bit of media coverage, she already had a profile and lots of people (including media) keen to back anyone who is not Tony. She is also politically very similar (right wing) - except for issues like climate change where she is quite progressive.

Will be interesting to see how this goes.
But I dont think Ive seen anything here that has been so much "NOT HIM" rather than a campaign for someone else.

ps go Zali
pps this is not my area, so I cant vote (my local member is a tennis champion John Alexander - a former world ranked 8, won grand slam doubles titles)
ppss just wanted to add something not about Trump!!

[G'day Mate]

I know that name from the Ice Dream! Perisher was too short so Roy and HG were going to dump garbage on Smiggin Holes to create Mt Zali Steggal

(also, I’ve skied Zalis)

[Crazed_Insanity]

Is there a good reason why you guys want to keep election date a surprise? Very interesting. Maybe that way your airwaves won’t be bombarded with political ads when elections coming up?

[Dicknose]

Is there a good reason why you guys want to keep election date a surprise? Very interesting. Maybe that way your airwaves won’t be bombarded with political ads when elections coming up?

We dont have a fixed date, there are rules on when it can occur, its then up to the prime minister to pick the date.
Crazy that the party in power picks when it happens!
The whole process takes about a month. Basically they pull the trigger, cancel the existing parliament and election process starts.
Campaigning is often underway before this since the window for when it will happen is known. Luckily the full election crazy campaign only goes a month.

Voting is always on a Saturday (a weekday seems very odd!) and voting is compulsory. We usually get about a 90% turnout.
You rarely hear much fuss about voter supression. If your name is on the roll then you can vote. Even if its not, you can vote, have it put aside and your eligibility can be checked later. For most people once you are on the electoral roll its an easy process. Ive rarely even been asked for id - just tell them name and address, they will ask if you have already voted! They cant actually check on the day and even later its hard for them to prove you voted twice, rather than it being a mistake by the officials.

[Crazed_Insanity]

So it's quite possible for you guys to end up with more than 100% turnout...

Yeah, I think our Tuesday elections were legacy of US's farming and religious culture... People needed roughly a day to travel to polling places... weekends are problematic if most attend church and Wednesday is farmer's market day... so after church... travel about a day on Monday... Tuesday became the national standard election day. Our elections, at least presidential, happen during fall because that's when most folks are done with harvesting and right before the cold winter... I think US decided to standardize a national date only after many hassles of election cycles. Australian government, formed in 1901, probably didn't have too many elections cycles to worry about when tech became advanced enough for this to be a non-issue.

Still, I find it amazing that you guys can just vote by mentioning your name and address without any sort of IDs.

[The359]

I vote by just mentioning my name.