I don't really know a ton about Australian politics, but I managed to pick up a few tidbits lately that I thought might be of general interest:
--voting is compulsory here. You get fined if you don't vote.
--the two main parties are Liberal and Labour, which very roughly would translate to Republican and Democrat, respectively. (Ironic, eh?)
--if I'm understanding this right, when Australians vote they can just pick a party at the top of the ballot and then everything else will get filled into how that party wants it to go. Of course, they also have the choice to vote for each candidate individually if they want to.
--if Australians vote for a candidate who doesn't end up really being in the running (say, the Green Party), instead of that vote going to the losing party, it will then be allocated to whichever party (presumably Liberal or Labour) the losing party (in our example, the Green Party) had thrown in its lot with. To put it in American terms, it would prevent situations like Ralph Nader pulling votes from Democrats because those votes would ultimately end up being Democrat votes.
--they do all the electing a whole lot faster than we do, and are shocked and appalled that it could possibly take us so long just to make up our minds and pick a President.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
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3 comments:
In a country of tall people called "Shorty" and red-heads called "Bluey" is it really that surprising that the conservative party is called "the Liberal Party"?
It's interesting isn't it that "a liberal" in America is more a labour voter here in Australia. And our Liberals are more like conservative Republicans!
Anywho, love your stylish looking blog! I'm going to bookmark it and keep up to date with your observations af the Australian and American cultures and societies!
Picking a party at the top only applies for voting for the Senate, not the House of Representatives.
And in Qld, we don't have an Upper House and we get to have optional preferential voting in our State elections.
And even more oddly, it's "Labor" not "Labour".
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