GetUp Australia have launched a quiz with a difference this week in advance of the Australian Federal Elections. Not sure who your ideal candidate is? Find out at http://www.howshouldivote.com.au!
Simply type in you post code, answer a few questions, and out comes your own personalised “how to vote” card. Here’s mine:
This came with a few surprises. You see, while I totally expected Julie Owens of the Australian Labour Party to come in ahead of Colin Robinson of the Liberal Party, based on the strength of my feelings over refugees, nuclear, greenhouse and other social justice related issues, I was rather surprised to see an independent, who I know nothing about, come in as number 1 on my sheet.
I was also rather surprised to see Sam Baissari of the Christian Democratic Party come in as number 4, over and against, not only the Liberals, but also Rene Hernandez of the (Pentecostal) Family First Party at number 8. I had always perceived Fred Nile’s mob as far more right wing, not that I’ve ever voted for either. Interesting also that Chris Gordon of the Socialist Equality Party came in dead last. He must have some pretty permissive attitudes to drugs or something like that I expect to come in that low despite my moderately left leanings on other matters.
Overall I don’t expect this to effect my primary preferences but I may take note of this if I decide to number individually on the day. And (thinking cheekily) maybe I should pass this site onto Julie Owens and Colin Robinson when I see them down at the train station this week (they are both turning up rather frequently given how marginal the seat of Parramatta is).
So me Aussie mates, prepared to share your results?
Curious Christian 
That’s really interesting, Matt.
We just had a local election here in the States and are ramping up for a Presidential election next November. ugh.
I wish we had as many choices on the ticket as you seem to have. That would really make it interesting and worth following. Just two (bad) choices, with a distant third is disheartening.
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Oh, interesting is one word for it. We get some truly wacky parties some times. My all time favourite was the Natural Law Party, which was associated with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, leader of Transcendental Meditation. Their stated defense policy consisted of strategically placing “flying yogis” around the coast of Australia to fight off negative vibes. Their promotional literature was a real hoot. Read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_Law_Party – they actually got onto our ballot papers, I kid you not. Needless to say, I did not vote for them. Given voting is compulsory in Australia we probably have a bigger market for protest parties than you have I suspect. At the end of the day though, it is still a two or three horse race.
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In the interests of public eduction, i should make it clear that the site only compares you to the candidates that have completed the quiz and simply puts the others in a random order (which is necessary to generate a valid HTV card).
Note the very high number of “Not Yet Completed the quiz” in your electorate. all of those peple are random, the others are ranked and the percentage is a good indicator of how close to you they actually are.
I hope that helps.
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i am in Kingsford Smith and i was Greens 1 and ALP 2… ALP is Peter Garret so i guess it pushes him over the line for being a Rock Legend as well….
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Wow.
1RERCERETNAM, MarcPARTY: The Australian Greens (NSW) 68%Based on your answers to our candidate match, Marc RERCERETNAM, in selected Lowe electorate is best suited for you. For more information on Marc RERCERETNAM View Profile
#2MURPHY, John
Australian Labor Party (NSW) 66%View Profile
**3SHAILER, Bill
Christian Democratic Party (Fred Nile Group) (NSW) Not yet completed quizView Profile
**4TSOLAKIS, Jim
Liberal Party of Australia (NSW) Not yet completed quizView Profile
Probably because I ticked the education and climate change boxes? Not that it matters: I’m disenfranchised 🙂
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Ta HSIV. I was starting to wonder about that. I suppose I should retake the test closer to the election and see if more candidates have responded.
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Andy, well Peter Garrett would have to be the greenest Labour candidate you could possibly think of wouldn’t he?
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RPG, makes me wonder if the Libs have completed too many of these at all yet.
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heh Matt, you’ve got to wonder. It’d be interesting to see a breakdown of survey responders by party and see if there’s a pattern.
Not that I’m suggesting the Liberals are out of touch with the electorate, but maybe the less mainstream candidatures have(through necessity) their collective ear closer to the ground.
I also wonder what the ‘less nominal’ Christians in Australia think about the two major party leaders, and what their options as voting believers really are.
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RPG, since GetUp tends towards a more social activist platform I am wondering about the leftist leanings of the survey responders in my area and yours. Could it be the right are skeptical about the neutrality of the questions?
As for what the ‘less nominal’ Christians in Australia think, in a post a few weeks ago I speculated on whether the relative absence of religious commentary in the media this election could suggest that Rudd has finally neutralized the Christian wedge Howard has used previously. And though I have no evidence for the rest of Australia I have noted that in the church I attend (which being Baptist is far from nominal) that religion in politics isn’t being debated nearly as much this time round. Could it be that Rudd is more acceptable to Christians than the previous Labour guys were?
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Hey Matt,
According to your HTV, there are quite a few asterisks which should be noted. According to GetUp:
* – Refers to 2 or more candidates whose match scores are equal, these candidates are ordered randomly.
** – Refers to when a candidate has not completed the survey, in this case candidates are also ordered randomly.
# – Your local candidate has not yet completed the survey. This answer has been entered by howshouldivote.com.au based on their Party’s policy information. For these candidates howshouldivote.com.au recommends you visit their website directly to confirm their position.
Hope that clears some things up!
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Thanks Rooster. It seems this quiz has a long way to go before we can credit it with much reliability. It is the first time it has been done in Australia, and they have rolled it out with only a week to go, so I suppose we treat this as the beta test.
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That’s very interesting. I get the absolute opposite to you. No matter how I answer the quiz it always comes up with a labor candidate! I suspect the system is stronly flawed.
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So, back to the drawing board eh?
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