#australian voting

[passerkirbius]

So, there's a lot of USians around who are very clearly fucking fed up with their political choices this election cycle, and planning to sit it out.

And I get it! What's the point of voting if there's no one to vote for?

The thing is, I'm Australian. In Australia, voting is compulsory. We don't get to sit out our elections, and I'll be real honest with you - we don't exactly get better choices than you lot. So how do you vote if there's no one to vote for? You find someone to vote against. And there's always someone to vote against.

Now, we have the pleasure of preferential voting in Australia - We get to rank every candidate from 1 to X, and I'll tell you, there's something so cathartic about putting the biggest bastard of the lot at the very bottom of your preferences. I understand that USians don't get that option - you get to mark one person, and that's it.

That means that you get one shot, so aim it at the biggest bastard of the lot. The candidate you most utterly detest. Put your vote in the worst possible place for them. Don't even think about who that vote's going towards, that's not the point. Remember, every vote is a vote against someone. Make sure you fuck up that someone's election day!

[simplegenius042]

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[bronwynhillside]

Want to know how it works? Well we have preferential voting in Australia and it's great. 100% love. It means we are not locked into a 2 party system. We can vote for the little parties.

Griffith university -

https://youtu.be/HaE6MigXYdY?si=xJE6PT-VdcMlSRo2

For an accurate and informative explanation, full of good Aussie swearing, Juice Media -

https://youtu.be/bleyX4oMCgM?si=8m72hflTKYRABX0o

So, a comparatively high amount of states are voting on the fate of ranked choice voting this year. Missouri is voting on whether or not to kill it, Alaska is voting on whether or not to keep it, and most importantly, Nevada, Oregon and Idaho are voting on whether or not to adopt ranked choice voting, with maybe Colorado to follow.

And if you live in these states, even if you don't want to vote at the top of the ticket, I urge you to get out there and vote in favor of ranked choice voting on all of them.

Like, the two-party monopoly is a big part of the reason why politics in this country is so shit, and a big part of that is our "first past the post" system making it basically mathematically impossible for candidates outside of them to win anything beyond a local or state level.

So, if you want to try and break the cycle of voting for the lesser evil, of bipartisan cruelty towards the Global South and the country's own citizens alike, we need to change this and we need to vote on it where we can.

[unsolicited-opinions]

More on the Bankstown NSW Health nurses who claimed to have murdered Israelis at the hospital where they were employed and expressed the desire to do so again.

According to news reports from SBS and the ABC (which appear to be reputable) both nurses will (at least) be prevented from working as registered nurses in Australia.

That's good. That's the obvious, low-hanging fruit, no-brainer response and neither NSW Health Minister Ryan Park nor the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency could do otherwise.

This is what any regulatory body would do, anywhere in the civilized world, if any licensed health professional was recorded claiming to have harmed (and/or intending to harm) any patient based on any national origin, any religion, or any ethnicity. Revoking their registration/license is the obvious, necessary action.

I think the bigger issue here is how widespread, normalized, and acceptable Jew hatred appears to be in Australia as so many defend the pair of nurses.

Here's Senator Fatima Payman defending them:

Senator Payman's pivot to an attack on an Imam seems to be the very same "whataboutism" which the illiberal left keeps saying they loathe.

Nobody smeared the reputation of Muslim Australians...except these two Muslim Australians.

Muslim neighborhoods in Sydney are not experiencing firebombings. They're not having nursery schools attacked. Nobody in the public health infrastructure has threatened the lives of Muslims, Palestinians, or Afghans.

Her claim that double standards are at play here is beyond ridiculous and the framing of these nurses as victims is profoundly dishonest.

If two Jewish Australian nurses were recorded claiming they'd murdered Muslim/Palestinian/Afghan patients at Australian public hospitals and planned to do so again, would Senator Payman make a video complaining that they've been punished and it's time to let it go? (Hint: No. She would not.)

The Muslim Vote Australia released this video claiming "...this is not just a double standard-it's an orchestrated moral framework where outrage is not dictated by the severity of an action, but by the one who commits it." (A conspiracy theory?)

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Text accompanying the video says that this is an "...orchestrated framework manufactured for political convenience while silence shields the powerful." (Again, this sounds like a conspiracy theory about Jewish media control.)

This video argues that the nurses' behavior is acceptable because of the "atrocities" and "genocide" taking place in Gaza. They should not be faulted, he argues, for their profound failure of professional ethics because of their feelings about the war.

If two Jewish Australian nurses were recorded claiming they'd murdered Muslim/Palestinian/Afghan patients at Australian public hospitals and planned to do so again, would this Imam make a video complaining that the subsequent outrage would be inappropriate? (Hint: No. He would not.)

I see the illiberal left constantly claiming that Israel uses the Holocaust to excuse atrocities. I see the illiberal left claim that antisemitism is a myth, a tool used by Jews to avoid accountability for crimes and moral failings.

This claim and these videos appear to be DARVO. They're doing exactly the same thing they accuse Jews of doing. They're weaponizing fears of Islamophobia in order to excuse crimes and moral failings while excusing them by lying about the war in Gaza.

I believe that if Jewish nurses anywhere in the civilized world claimed to have killed patients based on religion/ethnicity/origin and expressed the desire to do so again, mine would be only one of millions of Jewish voices calling for such Jewish nurses to be immediately sacked, de-registered, and investigated.

The thought I keep having isn't charitable and I'm concerned that it is bigoted, but it echoes in my head so loudly that I need to get it out:

Is it a part of Muslim culture to embrace the FA part of FAFO while refusing under any circumstances to accept the FO part?

Why are consequences for poor choices made by Muslims preaching/practicing violence never embraced as a matter of personal responsibility? In their world, the Palestinians have no agency and no responsibility for the horrible consequences of starting a war. These nurses, in this worldview, have no agency and no responsibility for their behavior because they're upset about the war which Islamist Muslims began and engineered to generate civilian casualties. In this worldview, any Muslims commiting crimes are exclusively victims, whose crimes are a response to oppression against them. This worldview casts Muslims only as victims, never as adults with agency and responsibility.

Can I recognize this as a repeating pattern without seeing myself as a bigot?

I don't think the Muslims I know and admire are Islamists, Jihadists, or Salafists. I don't think they endorse violence in the name of their faith.

I do think, though, that many of the moderate Muslims of the West, including some I know and like, do seem routinely to excuse it...using precisely these sorts of arguments and this very same counterfactual worldview.

So, am I an Islamophobe now?

That's not rhetorical, I'm actually asking. I'd like to know your thoughts.

[bronwynhillside]

For Australian voting, we have a website which lists what is available at our voting stations worldwide. This is divided into the categories of sausage sizzle, coffee, cake shop and extra. And includes our booths overseas, especially England.

My husband and I do actually pick where we go by what is at the station. Generally we preference anywhere with coffee.

As stations are at schools and community centres, it's a great way for a school to fund raise over $500 in a day.

[nevereverlupus]

Chase still holds full australian citizenship, right? At least once in the series he should be absent. Why? Federal election, voting at the Australian embassy. There's no australian embassy in New Jersey, so he'll have to take at least a day minimum to head to an embassy and vote.

[aleria14]

As a non American, can I please just vent my frustrations here?

Ahem.

HOW THE FUCK IS THIS STUPID ELECTION SO CLOSE?!?! WE DON'T ASK MUCH OF YOU, AMERICA, BUT IF I HAVE TO SPEND ANOTHER 4 YEARS LISTENING TO WHAT DONALD DRUMPF HAS TO SAY I AM GOING TO SCRREEEEAAAMMMM. 😱😱💀

[youruncleolaf]

[brick-van-dyke]

Okay, in light of the "vote blue or don't vote blue" argument I'm seeing around here, I'm gonna tell you all a story.

I'm Australian and I voted for the Labour Party in the last election. For context, the Labour Party is essentially the left democrat party for Australia, while the Liberal Party is the ring wing republican one. So, I did what you'd all call "voting blue" in the USA, but in Australia. Anthony Albanese is the leader of Labour Left, a faction within the Labour Party to push it towards more leftist policies and ideals. He promised to protect minorities and said he would advocate for a free Palestine. We all voted for him believing it would help and so far, it sounds good doesn't it?

Well, here we are and Anthony Albanese has so far been pushing against pro Palestine protests, trying to implement anti protest legislation and made things actively harder for minorities in Australia. He's done nothing that he promised and of course acted almost as bad as the Liberals when they were in just before. In fact, it's arguably worse since the Labour Party has been attacking the right to protest over the last several months. They haven't done shit for minorities and if argue the ALP has actively made our lives harder.

Is voting important or not important? I don't know if u can answer that, but I can say this; politicians shouldn't be trusted to carry out promises when they're only there for self interest, regardless of what label they use to advertise that self interest. You shouldn't depend on them for change and sit around waiting for that change to come from these people. And, most importantly? There is no difference between those who voted and those who didn't when the most left leaning candidate we had has now just become legally complicit in the ICJ for genocide. There is no lesser evil when even one of us is harmed, and there is no "well at least it's not as bad" when that means sacrificing each other for the sake of a few benefits, so we have to band together and fight the whole damn system. It doesn't matter who did what, because at the end of the day the power is to the people, not the politicians who clearly can't be trusted no matter if you voted for "the right one", or chose not to vote at all. So, sure, vote. But don't expect that to change the world. You change the world through getting up with your fellow community and making a stand through your own physical actions against he system, not waiting for a politician to change anything when it's their job to lie and cheat. Reliance on the system is how we all come to lose and division is how we're silenced.

We're in this together and we need to remember what's important; each other and the power WE hold when we work together and fight against the entire system itself, not some representative in a suit.

[simplegenius042]

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[claraameliapond]

PSA : THE INDIGENOUS VOICE REFERENDUM 14th October 2023

The Yes Vote is literally just giving indigenous Australians A SEAT AT THE TABLE to give information and advice about issues and governmental decisions that affect them.

Indigenous information and advice for indigenous issues from indigenous Australians.

That's it . It's acknowledging their existence as the first peoples of Australia and recognising that they have valuable information to contribute about their cultures, the ways they live, what their most pressing needs are and the best ways in which to help, to enable governments to effectively help them.

The government already provides "help" each year, in an effort to close the gap on education access, healthcare access, and many other pressing needs - they are already using taxpayer money to do this but crucially, these efforts have not been successful because we are missing out on crucial information.

The Voice to Parliament gives the government access to invaluable information that enables it to create and better implement aid, education, healthcare , equal opportunity.

I have been very actively involved in many Reconciliaton efforts for the vast majority of my life -

At 16 I travelled to some of the indigenous rural communities in Australia, met elders and individuals no tourist has access to meet, learnt from them, and saw what was there.

I saw the attempts, the efforts to provide access to Western education, that the rest of the country has, to provide healthcare, housing etc.

They don't work

They are based on western ways of life, ideas of community and interaction.

It's not the same.

They don't work.

Fundamentally because even if well intentioned, your efforts to help can actually harm if you don't have access to crucial information about how indigenous communities live.

We need to accommodate our help, our efforts, our aid to the specific needs and ways of life, values and dynamics of the many indigenous communities, especially rural, that exist across Australia, so that they have access to the same human rights we all do.

The human right to healthcare and education that we all have- it's not accessible in the same ways for indigenous communities.

It's provided, but on western terms- with the western expectation that children will leave their families for 6 months at a time and travel extremely far away to attend school, for example.

This is so backwards and outdated even for western sensibilities, and an incredibly outdated mode of education that is unhealthy emotionally for any child, let alone vulnerable people who have to choose between a western run school and their culture, their families - literally being a part of their community, a present member.

There are better ways to provide access to education than this. Ways that don't disrupt their connection to community, land and culture.

And the best people to ask, to provide information that can properly inform us about these issues, and how best to navigate them, fix them, are the the indigenous Australians themselves- they are the experts.

So that our aid and help and efforts actually do - help. Actually work.

The funds are going there anyway. So we need to put it to use in effective ways.

What we have now doesn't work.

We can only make it better.

Please Vote YES for The Indigenous Voice to Parliament

It is the beginning of lasting, effective positive change for vulnerable communities, and for us all.

[millionsofbooks]

something about the tiktok ban that i haven't really seen people here talking about is the experience of tiktok users not from the usa, which was, as far as i can tell, on the whole, very positive. it was actually really nice to, for a short period of time, be on a major social media network and able to interact with people across the world without usamericans constantly inserting themselves into every conversation.

usamericans kind of take over people's fyp regardless of where you're from. this is partly to do with the fact that the creators fund is only available to usamericans so most of the shitty content farms are from the us. then there's also the cultural aspect of the fact that being a citizen of the most powerful empire in the world is a significant privilege, and also a privilege that 99% of usamericans are seemingly unable to acknowledge, plus the us centrism and exceptionalism, plus the constant need to cast themselves as the underdog, and, well. it's annoying.

so, like. everything of what i've seen (which is not to say that other opinions don't exist, just that i haven't seen them) is that it was really nice when the usamericans were gone, and it kind of sucks that they're back.

[kellelkallel]

PSA y'all commenting anti Harris/pro Trump things on my posts isn't gonna change shit because

1. I'll just delete it

2. You look pathetic, getting pissed off and commenting doomer shit on some random kid's happy posts about getting campaign merch

And 3. I'm Australian. And a minor. Can't vote and everyone liking any political posts I make probably agrees with me 😂😂 keep trying to radicalise me it's entertaining to watch

[faithliesinashes]

Hey Aussies!

Humanity Bites on tiktok created this handy dandy little spreadsheet that breaks down how the ALP, LNP, and Greens have voted on various policies

In case you needed a comparison on who to vote for this election.

[constant-internal-screamin]

No see results button answer the question, if your not Aussie let me know your country, im testing a theory, so reblog for more results pls