In the House of Reps, I voted:1. Christian Democratic Party
2. Liberal (John Howard)
3. Family First
4. Labor
then other gibberers
In the Senate (I didn't have James Baker in my state):
1. Pauline's Party2. One Nation
3. Christian Democratic
4. Conservatives for Climate and Environment
5. Liberal
6. Family First
7. Labor
and not much thought for the rest of the 79 boxes (*).
For me, the biggest issue was immigration. CDP will not win my House of Reps seat, so my preference will go Liberal, but they made a stand against Muslim immigration so they got my vote.
For the Senate, Pauline and One Nation will oppose both Muslim and African immigration. I think the environment deserves some recognition, so I went with the Conservatives for Climate. If none of them get up, then my preference goes Liberal again.
Work Choices bothered me, I think the Libs pushed it too far, but Ross Gittins reckoned there was not much difference in the end - both parties compromised.
With immigration, the Liberals have let in record numbers of immigrants. Most notably, a lot of Africans, and I would have like to have kicked them for that. But I don't think Labor would be any better, judging by the state leaders who called Kevin Andrews a deep-South racist for limiting the Africans. And I still worry Labor is soft and wet.
A lot of right-wingers go on about the right to bare arms, and whilst I agree generally in the right to self defence, I haven't entertained thoughts of giving preferences to the shooters party.
In the end, CDP and Pauline are the most vocal on immigration.
Voting is hard.
* I didn't literally vote 1 to 7 for those parties. I numbered incrementally through each of the groups' candidates i.e. Pauline (1-2), One Nation (3-7), CDP (8-15) or whatever the numbers were.
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ReplyDeleteGood on you for voting for Pauline.
ReplyDeleteI hope she gets in Queensland - that will really shake things up and give the lefties and the faux-conservatives a shock.
"voting is hard" all right, for someone who takes the trouble to examine the issues and the various candidates and party's positions.
ReplyDeleteGood for you. :-)
From what i can see immigration wasn't an issue high on the voters agenda. I may be wrong but i don't think Pauline did very well, not sure.
ReplyDeleteNot sure, but it does appear that no-one campaigning on immigration will get near a Senate seat. Experience overseas suggest things have to get pretty ugly before immigration gets front-and-centre attention. Denmark and the cartoons. France and the riots. US and the amnesty Bill. Italy and the recent rape-murder. The UK had a big debate about it recently. Apart from that, the Swiss seemed to have breached the suffocation of political correctness with a massively brazen public campaign. It will take an organised lobby group with a visible campaign to raise the issue to mainstream. Only then will we know whether Australia really wants immigration or not.
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