Australian Politics

15 years The Greens, 10 before that Independent, 5 before that Labor.

Why ? Because the nations political and economic policies are based on cruelty, exploitation and entitlment, so at least I don't have to support that by enabling it with a vote.

The Greens policies are more likely (not all but more) to be based on science, the enviorment and/or kindness

I don't believe The Greens are radical enough but my hope would be the Overton Window could be moved if there was a much bigger swing to them, so we can at least discuss the more radical policies that are needed without being shouted down by conservatives.

I would always vote, I have no real hope that will change anything but If I am bothering to Vote I might as well do the right thing

I'm 58, I hold some pride in knowing I have NEVER voted for a winning candidate in any election I have ever voted in, it's not me helping cause this fucking mess by continually voting for heartless grifters.

"I did not mean that conservatives are generally stupid; I meant, that stupid persons are generally Conservative" - John Stuart Mill

Edit: I will often Vote for other small parties in the Senate, as well as Greens.

At all elections I've voted in, the Greens have been the first out of the noteworthy parties on my ballot, but I have variously put other smaller parties ahead of them, especially in the Senate. Pirate Party comes to mind as one example. In 2016 I think I did Pirate Party 1, Greens 2.

My reasoning for that was: even though I might agree with more of the Greens' policies, at the time I placed a high priority on the kinds of things the Pirate Party was advocating for. I still care a lot for intellectual property rights, but the importance of climate policy, housing, education, healthcare, and other things where the Greens perform better than Pirates has gone up over time.

To be honest, more recently I've turned more and more towards the Greens. I don't always agree with their methods and the way they prioritise things, but I can name very, very few of their policies that I actually disagree with. And frankly, the most recent example I can think of where I disagreed with their methods, they proved me wrong. Specifically, on the housing bill last year, I thought Labor's initial plan was bad, and the Greens got a good compromise out of them. I then thought the Greens should have accepted that compromise as "good enough", lest they get tagged yet again with the "letting the perfect be the enemy of the good" label that has unfairly haunted them since Rudd's climate policy.* But then the Greens kept at it, and ended up getting further compromise out of Labor, and only then supporting the Bill. Excellent work.

I’ve been voting in this country for 30 years, and for the last 20, it doesn’t seem to make a difference beyond undoing the last governments work

Hard to disagree with that, to be honest. I have complex feelings about this, from a bunch of different angles.

First: this is in no small part a Labor + LNP problem. I genuinely do believe that if the Greens had a majority in the House and Senate, it would make a huge really beneficial change. Partly, there is evidence for this. The Gillard minority Government is one of the most successful federal Governments we've ever had, and I believe that was in no small part thanks to the Greens and independents Labor was forced to compromise with in order to govern. The ACT government has long had Labor/Greens coalitions and though I don't follow it very closely, I've heard mostly good things. I can also point to governments elsewhere in the world where coalition governments are more commonplace, and at least when voters choose to vote more strongly left-wing, you tend to get better results than when Australia votes more left-wing.

And that segues me quite nicely to point 2. Our voting system. IRV is not a very good system. It's the best you can get with single-winner seats, but any single-winner system is always going to be worse than proportional systems. Our Senate uses STV, which is quasi-proportional, and so it's a fair bit better than IRV, but not as good as truly proportional systems. At the last federal election, over 12% of Australians wanted a Greens representative. Less than 3% actually got one. A combined 9% wanted One Nation and United Australia Party. They got 0. Labor got 51% of seats, from less than 33% of votes. The LNP is actually the most fairly-represented party, getting 39% of seats from 36% of votes. With more parties better-represented in Parliament, I think we would get better outcomes, instead of the same two parties over and over again. It would normalise the act of compromise to reach outcomes more people agree with. I think advocating for a change to our voting system to use something like MMP would be one of the best things we can do.

And thirdly, I've been a huge fan of former Brisbane City Councillor and former Greens Lord Mayoral candidate for Brisbane Jonathan Sriranganathan, ever since I started watching BCC meetings and seeing how thoughtful and dedicated he is. He has some really good words to say on the subject of electoralism (or the idea that merely voting better is a way to achieve better outcomes). I linked his final speech before leaving Council, which is really good and worth reading (also available in video form at the bottom), but this little bit is particularly powerful:

My time here has shown me the hard limits of electoralism as a standalone strategy for achieving social justice and ecological restoration. This entire system – including the council public service – has been structured to defend an unjust, extractivist order that benefits a privileged few, while brainwashing the majority into believing a better world isn’t possible. It is deeply naïve to think we just have to get a few more ‘good’ people elected and then everything will get better.

When I first won the Gabba ward, I actually had more faith in the potential of progressive government and running for office than I do now. I still think there’s significant strategic value in contesting elections to help tip the scales, but as they say in Barcelona, we must have one foot in the institutions and a thousand feet in the street.

It’s not that the individual politicians in this chamber are all personally corrupt. It’s not even that the major parties still take campaign donations from the corporate sector. It’s because this overly-hierarchical bureaucratic pseudo-democracy eventually reduces everyone who engages with it to faint shadows of what they could be – makes them afraid of deeper transformation. It narrows their thinking and turns them into bickering windbags.

He's been criticised by the major parties on a number of fronts, but one of the biggest ones earlier on was how heavily he gets involved in disruptive protests. His words here explain why he thinks it's such an important tool for political change, and I can't help but agree.

* and as a side note, I say "unfairly", because in the climate instance, it was manifestly unfair. Rudd's policy wasn't "good but not perfect" as Greens detractors would have you believe, it was actively bad. Treasury modelling (i.e., modelling designed to be as unbiased as possible, but likely biased towards the incumbent government if anything) said it would have no effect for 25 years. That means even today, we'd still be almost a decade away from it having any impact. And it included provisions that would mean if we wanted to increase it over time, we would have to pay polluters. Instead, the Greens ended up reaching a good compromise with the Gillard Government and seeing enormous positive change immediately. It's the LNP and the right-wing media that deserve the blame for our current poor position on climate, not the Greens.

I vote pretty similarly at both the state and federal level. At most elections there has been only one left wing option on the lower house ballot that somewhat aligns with my beliefs - The Greens. They are consistently on the ballot everywhere and are an easy first preference, There has never been a left wing independent candidate in my area, but in recent elections there has sometimes been an Animal Justice Party candidate who I will preference above The Greens. I don't necessarily think they have superior policy positions, but they are an alternative and I think competition within a a political sphere can help bring new ideas or challenge/reframe existing ones. I am concerned that The Greens are becoming a monolithic catch all for anyone further left than Labor, and I feel like it is pushing their voters into a bubble where they are never challenged by anyone they would consider listening to.

In the upper house I rarely preference The Greens first since there are usually many more small, left wing alternatives that I can prioritise. For example, at the last federal election I believe I numbered the Fusion Party first (or very high) because they have a much broader range of policy areas than The Greens as a result of being a merger of several different micro-parties. Like they have a whole section about intellectual property, copyright and civil/digital liberties through the Pirate Party.

Before any election I'll always take a look at who is running and skim read their public policy statements/positions to determine who is worthy of my vote. I usually do this about a week before the election day since some smaller parties and independents can be quite unorganised and only get information online at the last minute. Because of the way I vote, my options often change from election to election so keeping myself updated is very important.

it doesn’t seem to make a difference beyond undoing the last governments work… Maybe you see something I don’t.

It depends how you vote/who you vote for, but in my case I am making a difference (or attempting to) by boosting the numbers of lesser known candidates, encouraging them to run again in the future. If they can gain enough first preference votes they are also eligible for election funding, which helps to cover their campaign costs and gives them a better platform to build on. There is also always a secondary goal of preventing a Liberal/Coalition government, which I achieve/try to achieve through preferencing. I think it's easy to get fixated on who wins/loses and feel like nothing changes but there is a lot of nuance in our system that can you can use to help you feel like you're contributing, even if your favourite candidate/party didn't win.

You should vote for the cunt that gets stuff done. Because they're all cunts, so you should at least get something out of it.

I’ve been voting in this country for 30 years, and for the last 20, it doesn’t seem to make a difference beyond undoing the last governments work…

By all means vote, but you shouldn't expect significant change to come from voting.

MPs and their parties are beholden to their own interests that are roughly aligned with the status quo.

Significant change only comes about when grass-roots social movements can exert real pressure upon those in power.

So if you want to make a difference politically, get involved in organisations that are building a social movement. Joining and getting involved in your union is one way to start.

I've done some campaigning for the Victorian Socialists so I follow their how to vote cards. Preferences usually end up with Labour over the Liberal party so it's the lesser of two evils when it comes to the majors.

If you feel like voting isn't doing much there are things you can do between elections. There are protests almost every weekend about Palestine at the state library, regular climate and antifascist protests, and there are a bunch of things you can do locally to help out in your immediate area.

My local bicycle users group constantly petition council to make the area more cycling friendly. They've had some wins with it as well and they probably don't see themselves as a political group

The beauty of preferential voting is that the major parties are incentivised to cater for their opinions to gain more first preference votes in the next election. Climate change was frankly a non issue 15 years ago, now where I am in Kooyong (now with a teal independent), it would be impossible for a candidate to win without a climate policy. Victorian liberals tend to be much more moderate (think Frydenburg) than your Queensland liberals (Mr Potato head).

Last time I went to the polls I voted in order, Greens, Teal, Labor, Liberal, right wing independents.

Some seats are safe seats, in that case parties are less incentivised to throw money at your electorate. In marginal seats like Kooyong you'll see a corflute sign on every corner, and will get doorknocked every second day by a volunteer.

The best thing you can do is volunteer. The teals would not have won without thousands of volunteers doorknocking.

The problem is our politics has just become a game of divisive bloody-mindedness, where the "long-term" view only reaches as far as the next election, and the opposition does nothing but shit-can the ideas of the government of the day, even if they're good ideas.

Putting aside his out-of-touch conservatism, the last time we had true bi-partisan politics in Australia was under Howard, when he brought about gun reform.

As we have a two party system, I vote with the view that I want to build a strong enough majority government in the lower house that they can build good legislation without having to horse-trade with the other party, but with the right mix in the Senate that they need to negotiate with the right parties/people to pass things into law.

For me, I prefer a Labor government, but with enough Greens and/or independents in the Senate that Labor has to consider things like social reform and climate action to get their legislation passed.

My voting order (currently) tends to be:

• Independents (where their policies align with my views/goals)
• Greens (usually)
• Labor
• (potentially) fringe parties with good platforms (this is both rare and dangerous IMHO - I usually dig into their voting prefs first)
• Liberals
• Extremist view parties (One Nation, etc)
• Absolutely anything with a remotely religious agenda

I know I'm possibly a bit rare in this regard, but I'll often spend part of a weekend before an election researching the candidates for my seat and senate, and building my voting order in advance. A lot of people might see this as wasted time, but I actually enjoy diving into this stuff and casting my vote with my conscience.

Fringe parties with good policies -> Greens -> Labor -> independents with single policy platforms -> Liberal -> nutbag parties like One Nation -> religious based parties.

Hard to tell if these posts are trolls trying to encourage voter apathy.

But here's an answer to your question. If the simple act of voting doesn't seem effective, then you should engage more with the election process. Volunteering at your next local election is a great nonpartisan way to get involved. Or if there's a candidate you really support you can volunteer with their campaign.

The system is working as intended, please carry on.

Vote for independents, even if you're sure they'll lose. Preferential voting is a beautiful system which benefits you in ways you might not realise.

It forces the winning party to consider emulating the top independents. It also encourages the independents to try again.

My top choice is always whoever has the best environmental protection policies, animal welfare protections, and wants to address climate change.

This normally means I vote: Independents > Greens > Labour > Liberal > Nationals