Australia gets ready to vote

We’re only a few days away from deciding who will lead Australia for the next three years. Will John Howard still be the Prime Minister on Sunday morning or will Kevin Rudd and his Labor team defeat the Coalition.

For those outside Australia it may surprise you to know that voting is compulsory for Australians over the age of 18. Those who fail to turn up to a polling booth on election day can be fined.

If you’re an Aussie who hasn’t quite made up your mind on who’s getting your vote you can check out the how should i vote website. You enter your postcode, then take a twenty question quiz and you’ll be presented with your own how to vote card for your electorate. I saw a link to the site on Hamo’s Backyard Missionary blog.

Of course, it is difficult to get a true understanding of all the issues in a simple twenty question quiz but it might help steer you in the right direction.

If you’re a Christian who’s trying to decide who should be our Prime Minister there are a lot of other issues you might like to consider.

Salt Shakers have gone to a lot of effort to help inform Christians on how to vote. You can find a link to their Christian Values Checklist from their website. Unfortunately any such list will only tell the story from the worldview of the people putting it together and I found that several issues that I feel are vital were missing.

The Salt Shakers list seems to focus on legislating morality and doesn’t even touch on how we look after the poor, how we treat indigenous people or asylum seekers. There’s nothing in the list about world aid and ending poverty or even about creating a fair workplace for Australians. I feel that the Bible has much to say on these issues and that they must be considered if we are to get the full picture. Thankfully they have a lot of other resources on their site, apart from the checklist, which may help you towards a decision.

My regular Wednesday morning guest on 98.5 Sonshine FM is Ross Clifford who is the Principal of Morling College in New South Wales and current President of the Baptist Union of Australia. Each week we chat about a range of issues relating to spirituality and belief.

Today we looked at the topic ‘What Would Jesus Vote’ in an effort to equip people to do their homework so that they can discover who deserves their vote.

You can hear our discussion using the media player below.



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About the author

Rodney Olsen

Rodney is a husband, father, cyclist, blogger and podcaster from Perth Western Australia.

He previously worked in radio for about 25 years but these days he spends his time at Compassion Australia, working towards releasing children from poverty in Jesus' name.

The views he expresses here are his own.

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3 Comments

  • Hey Rodney, that’s a cool site (howshouldivote). I’d love to know who’s behind it, and what they do with the answers.

    The premise is simple – match your answers with a party’s answers to the same questions – but there was a disclaimer at the end that “…most candidates
    endorsed by the Liberal and National Parties, have not completed the survey, nor has the Liberal Party accepted howshouldivote.com.au’s invitation to provide a response…”!

    Cheers, and have fun tomorrow voting,

    Thomas

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