Shooters and Fishers

Well, we've gone and elected ourselves a hung parliament.

That means we don't have an elected government until they've sorted out the preferences, which is kind of fun, and not entirely new. After all, we haven't had an elected Prime Minister for the past couple of months.

Anyway, the way I look at it I can't complain. After all, I deliberately wasted my votes this year.

I often deliberately waste my votes. I'm worse than a swing voter, I'm an anarchic one. Every once in a while I'll care who gets into power because I'll actually believe that one party is worse than the other, but most of the time I believe we get offered a choice between red jelly-fish and blue jelly-fish. It doesn't matter who you vote for, you're still going to get a jelly-fish.

Last election, I cared. Phillip Rudd ran a campaign I could actually respect. This never happens in Australian politics. I can't stand politicians who spend most of their time telling me why I shouldn't vote for the other guy - please just stick to telling me why I should vote for you!

Now, Rudd did a little bit of "don't vote for the other guy", but most of his campaign focused on "this is what I want to do". Sure, most of it was rubbish and he couldn't deliver in the time frame he thought he could, but it was still someone standing up and saying "vote for me because I think I can do something" rather than "vote for me because the other guy is trying to sell us to crack addicted cannibals". The mud slinging and fear mongering were pretty much all from the side of the Liberals, last time.

This time, everyone was doing it. Back to the "red jelly-fish or blue jelly-fish" selection. So I went back to voting anarchically.

In past years, when I really didn't care one way or another, I used to randomly select my candidates based on some arbitrary and pointless quality - for example, whoever had the most Ls in their name. Then I started really hating everyone in both of the major parties, and went for the Democrats just because they weren't the other guys - and then, of course, the Democrats imploded. After that I started voting for minor parties that didn't have a hope of winning. I make a point of choosing whomever I believe will not win under any circumstances and voting for them.

Last election, I wanted Labour to win, so I voted for them. This election I preferred Labour to Liberal, but the Labour candidate for my area was someone I couldn't vote for in good conscience. The man was mayor of the town for 12 years and the number of things he did for the region can be counted on one hand.

The thing about Federal Elections is that people tend to forget they are local elections. You aren't really voting for the prime minister, you are voting for your local member of parliament. If the local Labour candidate is the worst candidate on the list, then sensible people don't vote for him. Thus, they don't vote for Labour.

So this year, for the House of Representatives, I had the choice of voting for the candidate I didn't want (Labour), the party I didn't want (Liberal), the party I don't respect (Family First) or the party I don't care about - which hadn't even bothered to advertise their candidate in my area (Greens). Fine choice. I went with the nobodies I didn't care about, obviously.

Then for the Senate I just picked a party that a) didn't have a hope of winning, b) amused me and b) had the opposite views to the party I voted for on the other ballot. I may as well go for balance. It's not like I've got anything else to go for.

So, for the first time in my life, I voted for the Shooters and Fishers Party. I'd never heard of them before, they would probably never have a hope in hell of having any influence on the government and you couldn't get further away from the Greens if you tried.

Plus, the name amused me greatly. "Shooters and Fishers Party". One day I'm going to start up my own political party and call it the "Legalise Ferrets Party". We'll largely stand for making ferret ownership legal in Queensland, but just to ensure we can also be relevant to other states and territories we'll also make a point of campaigning to stamp out daft laws across the country.

Of course, today I actually looked up the Shooters and Fishers Party and discovered they campaign against national parks (of which I'm quite fond), so now I wish I'd voted for the Australian Fishing and Lifestyle Party.

Interestingly, the Shooters and Fishers ended up with 1,490 votes in my district alone for this election (the Fishing and Lifestyle Party blitzed past them on 2,411), but no one voted for the actual candidates. This means that approximately another 1,489 people also thought "what the heck" and just ticked the party box on the ballot paper. Sixty-one of them went to the same polling place I did. All up, 73,174 people voted for them. Some may have even done so on purpose.

Next time I'll try voting for the Citizens Electoral Council or the Socialist Alliance - they tied for bottom place in my district on 55 votes a piece. Either that or the Legalise Ferrets Party.

Go the LFP!