Doing our bit for the democracy sausage

Labor's election victory was the result of Australia's determination to prevent a Coalition government, from within our shores and overseas. GJ Burchall writes.

THIS WAS THE first time we lodged a vote in a strange country and that includes Australia. And it wasn’t even compulsory. The Embassy clearly declared that voting was optional for citizens who found themselves beyond Australian borders, which was awfully decent of them. This was why we decided that this time, we had to vote.

Yes, we know that in the U.S., where voting is not compulsory, less than 50 per cent turn out to pull a lever or whack-a-mole, or whatever it is they do to select their glorious leader. On the other hand, Timor-Leste sees turnouts of over 80 per cent and voting is not enforced.

Even Britain gives voters a choice. Surely, if you have the “right” to vote, you should also exercise the right to abstain without fear of financial retribution.

Compulsory voting brings in all those who don’t follow the issues, who aren’t politically engaged, and they are precisely the ones who are most vulnerable to scare campaigns and empty promises. Truly, who needs them?

So, on Saturday afternoon, as Geelong pounded valiantly on against ladder-leader Collingwood, we fronted up to the Australian Embassy on Rua Mártires da Páttria, Dili. Tossed our battered passport into the metal security tray, which the guard promptly slid back into his cubby house.

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Buzzed through. The wand was waved over us, our tote bag probed. Visitor pass on a lanyard. A wave to a side entrance.

Oh, joy. Pure bliss. We were spared being assailed by packs of rabid how-to-vote pamphlet-pushers, who hold their box-numbering patterns to be more transcendent than a winning Lotto sequence.

Into a tiny room, two women behind a desk, two blokes doing their kindergarten counting in two of the three cardboard cubicles. Australian driver’s license? No. Current Australian address? No. Address you had at the last election?

“When was the last election?” we innocently ask.

“Four years ago,” the first woman says, rolling her eyes. Duh.

“Three,” amends the other.

Correct. To the very month. Which is rare. Australian federal governments rarely go full term, more often “go early”, always never tell the country when the election will be until they’re good and ready.

How many had been through? About 200 of an estimated 1,000. The Australian Embassy doesn’t know how many citizens are in-country? No — only the Timor Government has those figures. That explains why there was no Australia Day celebration invitation.

We work out we’re probably in Wills. Used to be Melbourne. But then the electoral boundary moved and the local bar closed down. These two events may or may not have been related.

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Instructions. Numbers one to eight on the little green slip. At least one to six across the top of the long, white concertina scroll, or one to everyone across the bottom. Into the cardboard booth, grab a golf pencil. (Why do they give you a pencil if they don’t also give you an eraser?)

This is much less sophisticated than elections in Timor-Leste. Having served on international observation teams for both presidential and parliamentary polls, we admire the way people line up for hours in the broiling sun. The frail, disabled and pregnant are ushered through to the front. Voter ID cards are presented, names crossed off. A wall map-sized ballot paper is issued (in one year, there were 23 parties vying for a vote) and into the booth.

No scrawny pencil stubs here. Each booth comes with a six-inch nail on a string. No numbers. You merely punch a hole in the box that represents the candidate of your choice.

Australia would do well to adopt a version of this. Keep the boxes and the pencils with which to number them, but add headshots of the desperate, pick-me candidates and have the nail-on-a-string to punch a hole between the eyes of the ones you especially loathe.

We did the best we could. Half these whackos we’d never heard of. Libertarians (or was it Librarians?). Fusion (something to do with nukes?). Animal-whatever? Victorian (the state or the era?) Socialists. Trumpet of Patronising? Shooters, Fishers, Farmers, Tinkers, Tailors. And any party with “First” in its name went last.

After tic-tac-toe with the primary numbers and just to show we won’t take any guff from these moochers, we also scrawled ‘fixed date elections!’ across the paper.

Outside, we went to surrender our Visitor dingle-dangle, but were challenged with: Aren’t you going to have a “democracy sausage”? Oh, righto. They were packing up, but one of the obliging snack-makers found the makings, embedded a snag in bread (white). Onions? Oath. There was no mustard.

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She hands it over. “That’s two dollars, please,” she announces. Two American dollars, mind.

This is just so typical of election campaigns. They make their offers, dress them up with (fried) incentives, then just when you show the teeniest approval, they slap you with the hidden cost.

We make a pantomime, pat our pockets and offer her back the offending snag.

“Umm. Go on, I’ll shout you. It’s for democracy, after all.”

“It’s not democracy if they force us to vote,” we opine.

“No controversy, now. Just enjoy your free sausage.”

And the utterly stunning result? Geelong won.