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Flag of Australia hang from a sandstone building. (Shutterstock/EyeofPaul)
M
ore than 16 million Australians will go to polls for the federal election this Saturday. By comparison with Indonesia’s razzmatazz last month, the neighbors are playing tiddlywinks.
That doesn’t mean the Ozzie system is slicker. If the figures are close between the incumbent Liberal-National coalition and the Australian Labor Party challenger, the result may take longer to determine than Indonesia’s presidential race.
It’s often written that Australians have to vote, as do citizens of Bulgaria, Gabon and Greece. Wrong. We must go to the booth, be marked as present, collect the ballot papers and retire to the private cubicle.
Here we can exercise real people power, our triennial right to put a number against a candidate’s name. This might help her or him head to Canberra and a job that pays a minimum A$200,000 (US$138,059 billion) plus allowances a year.
Reading the research, voters are showing underwhelming enthusiasm. Many would rather spend their Saturday cleaning out the septic tank than deciding who’ll run the nation. Who’d want to vote for candidates they don’t know and might dislike, unless forced to participate? The no-show fine is A$20.
Without this law the turnout might be below the 55 percent participation in the 2016 United Stated presidential election.
The estimated 80 percent voluntary vote across this Republican archipelago on April 17 is a splendid put-down of those who say Indonesians aren’t into democracy.
