Hey everyone, Giordano and Ellen here from The Juice Media. Hi!
So many people concerned about climate have been writing to us and commenting on our recent
Honest Government Ads with questions like:
Who should I vote for at the election?
How do I vote for someone who is Not Shit on climate?
How do I know where my preferences will go?
And more…
There’s no way we can reply to all those questions individually.
So we thought we’d make a quick video to address some of them here.
Before we go on, I just wanna say: voting is your choice.
Well, voting is compulsory in Australia
But how you vote is your choice
Right, so if you already know that you want to vote Labor, great
If you’re set on voting for the Greens or an Independent, great
And if you’re set on voting for the Libs, what are you doing here you must be lost
Point is, we’re not here to convince you to change your vote
We’re here to answer some questions from people who might be confused about how our
voting system works, and who want to know how they can make their vote count on climate
at this crucial election
Voting can sometimes seem complicated, especially if it’s your first time
but don't worry, we’re gonna keep it simple and make sure you’re all over it this election
So let’s get into it
We’ll start with the basics: When you go to the voting booth, you’ll get two ballots
The Green ballot is for the House of Representatives, aka the Lower House
This is where Government is formed
And the big White paper is for the Senate aka the Upper House
Also known as the House of Review coz all the bills introduced by the House of Reps
have to be approved by the Senate before they become law.
So your Senate vote is just as important
And yes, it’s a big piece of paper but don’t let that freak you out, it’s actually pretty simple
Let’s look at the Green ballot first: The idea with preferential voting is that you
put a 1 next to the candidate you’d most like to represent you in the House of Reps
Then you must number the rest of the boxes in order of preference
So you put the person you like most, first. And the one you like least, last
It’s a great system, coz if your first choice doesn’t get enough 1st preference votes
to win the seat, your second choice will be counted, in full
And if your second choice doesn’t get enough votes to win, your third choice is counted…
And so on, until someone gets a clear majority and wins that seat
But remember: for your vote to count, you HAVE to number all the boxes on this ballot
The AEC has made a neat video explaining this in more detail with some cool animations which
you can check out: we’ll put the link in the video description below
And if English isn’t your first language the AEC has also produced some multilingual
guides, which again we’ll link to in the video description below
Ok, let’s look at the Senate ballot paper now: here you follow exactly the same process
we saw with the Green ballot paper: the only difference is that here the boxes are lined
up horizontally, like this
Instead of vertically like in the green ballot paper
And unlike in the green ballot paper, you don’t have to number all the boxes
Thank God, coz there's a lot of them
You just have to number at least 6 of them above this black line
Alternatively, you can vote below the line
but to keep it simple we’re not going to get into that here
The AEC has made another video that explains the difference between voting above or below the line
So if you want to know more, check that out
But if you want to keep your Senate voting experience simple: vote above the line and
just be sure to number at least 6 boxes
And that’s basically all there’s to it
At this point we want to address a question that often springs up: Can a Party choose
where your preferences go?
The short answer to that is: No.
And the long answer is: Not at all.
Parties don’t choose your preferences. YOU do
Only you decide where your preference goes, and you do that by following the process we
just described: of choosing the order in which your preferences are counted.
But what about these How To Vote cards that parties are telling me to follow?
How to vote cards are simply the parties’ SUGGESTIONS on how they’d like you to vote.
But you don’t have to follow those suggestions.
On election day, volunteers will hand you their party’s How to Vote Cards to try and
influence your vote at the last minute.
That’s coz it’s a well known fact that
many voters only choose who to vote for while standing in line to vote
But if you’ve done your homework - which you should do for this election - then you’ll
know who you’re voting for already.
So just say “no thanks” and walk right in
That being said, How to Vote Cards CAN be useful if you don’t have time to research
all the candidates on your ballot AND you trust the party who’se suggestions you’re following
How to vote cards can also help you work out where a candidates’ own political tendencies lie
So for example: Dave Sharma’s How To Vote Card, the Liberal candidate for Wentworth,
tells you to vote 1 for him - obviously - and then to put a 2 next to the United Australia Party candidate
you know, the party owned by a mining billionaire
Which should tell you that Dave’s a Shit candidate on climate
But whether or not you follow How To Vote Cards, the key thing to remember is they’re
just suggestions.
The final choice on how your preferences flow in our electoral system is yours.
Ok, ok Giordano, now I understand HOW to vote.
But WHO should I vote for if I want to help elect a candidate that’s Not-Shit on climate?
Well, I don’t like to tell people who to vote for
But when we’re dealing with climate, you don’t have to take my opinion or anyone
else’s: you can just follow the science.
Climate Analytics has just put together this analysis that shows you the global warming
consequences of the climate targets of the Libera/Nationall Party, the Labor Party, the
“Teal” Independents and the Greens, and puts them side by side.
As you can see, the current Government’s climate target puts us on track for total
climate meltdown in a 3C warmer world - double the “safe limit” of 1.5C warming set at the Paris Summit
So that’s what the science would call Shit.
Which is why we call it the Shit Party.
Labor’s climate target puts us on track for 2C of warming - that’s better than 3C,
but still catastrophic coz we’re already seeing unprecedented fires and floods, and
we’re only at 1.3C degrees of warming today
So the science would call that a Shit-Lite target
And then you have the Teal Independents and the Greens whose targets would put us on track
for staying under the safe limit of under 1.5C warming.
So that’s what the science would call a Not-Shit candidate.
Ok ok Ellen, we know the Greens, but who are the Not-Shit Independents?
That’s a good question.
Coz not all Independents are Not-Shit.
Some are very Shit indeed.
If you can’t be bothered to research all the Independents in your electorate, you can
be confident that Independents supported by the "Voices of" and Climate200 movements are
Not-Shit on climate.
So if in doubt, head over to this page of the Climate200 website and find out if they’re
supporting an Independent in your electorate.
We’ll put the link in the video description.
All the electorates where these Not-Shit Independents are running are currently held by Liberal/National MPs
So if you live in one of them and can vote, congratulations: you can help kick out one
of this Government’s Shit MPs and replace them with one that will take real action on climate
Ok, so now that you know the basics of HOW to vote…
And now that you know WHO the Not-Shit climate candidates are in your electorate…
Let’s look at how you can help get them elected:
STEP 1: Give your first preference to the Not-Shit candidate of your choice.
If there’s more than one Not-Shit option in your electorate, number them next, in your
order of preference.
STEP 2: Put the Shit-Lite Party after your Not-Shit choices.
This way, if your Not-Shit climate choice doesn’t get elected, your vote will flow
to Labor.
Labor winning seats is a good thing - especially in marginal seats, as that will be essential
to kicking the Shit Party out of government.
STEP 3: Put the Coalition parties after your Not-Shit and Shit-Lite choices.
For those who don’t know, the Coalition is comprised of the Liberal Party and the
Nationals.
The leader of the Nationals also becomes Deputy Prime Minister when the Coalition is in power.
Which is why a vote for the Liberal Party is a vote for this knob as your Deputy PM.
So make sure to put both Shit Parties last.
After all, that’s where they always put you.
STEP 4: Put the Most Shit parties on climate, last:
Like Palmer’s United Australia Party.
And Pauline Hanson’s One Nation which is literally full of climate deniers like this
total toolbag.
And that’s how you can make your vote truly count for climate at this election.
Coz every Not-Shit candidate who wins a seat will become a Not-Shit MP who will sit on
the Crossbench and vote on the future direction of our climate policy.
Does all this apply to both the House of Reps and the Senate ballot papers?
Yes.
Don’t forget the Senate!
It’s just as important because if we get a Not-Shit House of Reps and a Shit Senate,
we still end up with a Shit government.
So make sure to Vote 1 for Not-Shit candidates on your Senate ballot, too.
The Greens are an obvious choice here as they already have 9 Senate seats, so this is where
they can have most impact by helping to vote through Not-Shit climate legislation introduced
by the House of Reps.
Am I helping the Coalition if I vote 1 for anyone other than Labor?
No.
As long as you put Labor above the Liberal/National parties, you can safely give your first preferences
to a Not-Shit candidate; coz as we saw, if your first choice doesn’t win, your vote
will flow to Labor.
So not only are you not risking or wasting your vote; you’re getting more value out
of your climate vote.
And lastly, will the sky fall if we end up with a Hung Parliament?
Ok so, a Hung Parliament is what happens when an election ends up with no single party winning
enough seats in the House of Reps to form government on their own.
This means the major parties then have to negotiate with the crossbench MPs to form
Government.
And that’s why it’s so important that those crossbench MPs are the Not-Shit ones
you elected; so that THEY’ll have a seat at the table of those negotiations.
You’ll hear a lot of negative things being said about Hung Parliaments - but that’s
all coming from the major parties, who of course would much rather form government on
their own than not have to negotiate with the crossbench.
So ignore them.
Hung Parliaments are the norm in many European countries, and the sky hasn’t fallen there.
We actually made a whole Honest Government Ad that explains what a Hung Parliament is,
so if you’d like to know how it can help our next government be less Shit on climate,
check it out.
Alright, that’s all we got for today.
We hope this has been helpful in answering some common questions we’ve been getting.
But of course, ultimately it’s up to you to decide how to vote.
As we said at the start - your vote is your choice; and we respect our audience enough
to make that choice for themselves.
The one thing we like to remind people of is that we have a pretty great preferential
voting system where you can make your climate vote truly count, if you know how to use it.
People in the US and UK wish they had our preferential system of voting, so the least
we can do here in Australia is know how it works.
Yep, that’s why we also made an Honest Government Ad about Preferential Voting, which we hope
most of you have seen by now.
If not, you’ll find the link in the video description together with all the other links
we’ve mentioned in this video.
Before we sign off, I want to thank all our Patrons for supporting our work.
Our latest video - to which this podcast acts as a companion - marks the end of Season 2
of the Honest Government Ads.
It’s been an epic season, covering so many topics; and we could not have done all that
without your support.
So thank you.
This also marks the two-year anniversary of the Juice Media Podcast which I started as
a way to discuss each of our Honest Government Ads in more depth, with help from experts
and awesome guests along the way; and it’s been a privilege to make it for you.
I want to give a huge thanks to Ellen, who not only stars in our Honest Government Ads
but has also been editing the podcast this past year, and it’s great to have her joining
me on the podcast for the first time!
It’s good be here!
This is absolutely my favourite way to take action on things I care about so thank you
for that Giordano, and to all the Patrons who make it possible.
Well that’s all for now: Season 3 of the Honest Government Ads will kick off when our
new, government is elected.
So if you’re not already a Patron and want to help us keep governments honest and people
informed, please support us at patreon.com/thejuicemedia
Or you can support us via one one of the other option on the Juice Media’s website at thejuicemedia.com/support.
You’ve been listening to the Juice Media Podcast with me, Giordano.
And with me, Ellen.
And on behalf of all of us here at the Juice Media, thank you, good luck and happy Not-Shit
voting.