Voting in Australia

I was sitting at the bar in a Sydney hotel and the fellow next to me said, “I went in to vote this morning. As the woman at the desk rolled out the voting form she said, ‘Are you here to vote in the federal election?’ I said: No, I’m here to buy toilet paper. She then said ‘Is this the first time you have voted in this federal election?’ I said: Why would I want to vote twice! Then I thought ‘why do I have to vote at all?’”

“Compulsory voting,” I said, “is what we do in Australia, and, yes, voting is not compulsory in America, Canada or Britain. It was introduced here in 1924. The other thing we do here in elections is preferential voting which was first used in Queensland in 1892, and then introduced in Tasmania by the fellow who was the real ‘Father of the Nation’, Andrew Inglis Clark.”

“I was reading the new book ‘What a Capital Idea – Australia 1770-1901’ [ www.reynoldlearning.com/australian-history ] about Federation and discovered on page 431 that Clark was the brains behind the Commonwealth of Australia Act. He proposed the name for the federation – ‘The Commonwealth of Australia’, and wrote 96 of the clauses in the Constitution and only 10 which were amended. And, he supplied the design for the Australian flag.”

“Why haven’t I heard of him before?” said my friend at the bar.

“There’s lot of things about Australian history where we have been told only half the truth. You should have a look at the new book I was talking about. Take the secret ballot election process, for example. It was introduced by the Australian colonies as early as 1856. By 1900, ‘secret ballot’ voting was called the ‘Australian ballot’ system across the world. Before that, and in other countries, candidates used to bribes, intimidation or paid people to vote for them.”

“To tell you the truth” I said, “secret ballot voting didn’t seem to make much difference to the continual arguing in the parliaments. From 1855 to 1895, some 40 years, New South Wales experienced a change of premier 29 times, Victoria 28 times, Tasmania 22 times and South Australia 37 times. That is, a premier was lucky to last 18 months in the job.”

“Can you imagine having to go and vote for politicians every two years, or less,” I said.

“No wonder they made it compulsory,” the fellow concluded.

Secret Ballot elections

You’re going to love the book:  https://reynoldlearning.com/

Christopher Reynolds