Considering almost half Tasmanian adults are functionally illiterate that seems like One Nation is doing pretty poorly in their core demographic. Maybe if more mining kicks off in Tassie Gina will give enough fucks about the balance of power and buy some electorates for her sock puppet party.
Ehh it’s one thing to say you will vote with the rabid racists that are being legitimised by the mainstream mid cycle between elections. It’s another to vote that way at the ballot box.
Plus a significant proportion can intend to vote for the red headed freak all they want. It’s a bit more difficult when they have to remember the verbal instructions from the electoral worker, make it to a booth and remember how to write to manifest that desire.
Honestly, it’s the Sky News, Channel Nine, Facebook crowd that will buoy PHON up. The same people who will decry that the left have gone to far because trans people exist, who waffle on about death taxes as though they will have a big enough estate to be affected one way or another, and who talk about having to be economically responsible and living within our needs as a country while ignoring the Billions in corporate welfare and tax cuts for the rich. Fucking Idiots in other words, and yet their vote carries as much weight as mine or yours, its kinda disgusting really.
A 3 question civics test before you can vote would destroy whole blocs of voters in Australia. Just get them to identify how a progressive income tax works, which country is the biggest greenhouse gas emitter in the OECD, and which parts of the Miranda Rights apply to them, boom PHON gets a dozen votes across the whole country.
You guys never learn, do you?
Calling people racist simply because they want to focus on helping people here before importing more immigrants is ridiculous, and all it does is push more and more people towards what you mistakenly call “racism”.
You’re basically saying you don’t care if they can’t afford a house or groceries, and calling them racist for it.
Oh it’s you… Seriously, why do you think you can see Gina Reinharts lips twitching when Pauline talks. She’s a sock puppet. But we as a nation keep falling for the billionaire backed line about how the people even worse off than us are causing problems, not the ownership class. Plus she doesn’t fucking run the party with her name on it, it’s a bunch of political mercanaries who are just following the money. One Nations was a dysfunctional grift full of money grubbers and PHON is exactly the same thing.
These people are ignorant, talk to them and hear them rabbit on with the same tired talking points they have been spewing forever, it’s racism pure and simple.
Choose to view them as noble savages all you like, it doesn’t change who or what they are. At least they could be honest and fess up to it. I’ve been racist in the past, I’m not proud of it, but I grew up and realised people are all the same, the language might be different, the cultural perspective might not perfectly align, but we all have the same basic wants and needs.
There’s a reason that these right wingers and pseudo right wingers align so closely with super partisan religions, its all feelings all that way down logic and rationality are actively shunned. While they stamp their feet, stick out their bottom lips and demand they are the only ones using “common sense”.
Having some kind of extremely-low barrier, pre-declared multiple-choice test questions in order to gain ballot access is an idea I’ve played around with. Literally mail out a pamphlet with the questions and answers, drafted by the AEC and approved by as many candidates/parties as possible to prevent it being unneutral or propagandised. Objective things like “Which of these services does the federal government handle?” and “Which of these is the typical income of an average Australian?”. And if, for whatever reason, you can’t answer these simple questions, you aren’t informed enough to help decide who represents us in our democratic system.
Relevant, but not quite the same: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistemic_democracy
Sorry, but I disagree.
I can guarantee you I don’t know enough about the candidates in my electorate. And I purposely allocate and spend time looking at them before I go to vote. Also, my vote has probably never made any difference at all in who was elected.
Unless. Wait…
Oh. I get it. Maybe I am one of those who don’t deserve a vote.
More a test on the fundamentals of our government structure. I actually believe not knowing your candidates and their positions is a sign that they aren’t communicating them effectively. Not knowing the difference between say State and Federal levels of government means you personally lack knowledge of the fundamentals. If that makes sense.