Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $9.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Another Election? How the Voting System Works in Australia
    Another Election? How the Voting System Works in Australia
    Another Election? How the Voting System Works in Australia
    Ebook74 pages45 minutes

    Another Election? How the Voting System Works in Australia

    By Jim Reiher

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Australia is one of the few democracies in the world that has compulsory voting. Despite forcing all citizens to vote, many Australians are unsure about how the voting system works. Most have never been taught the details of the system. There is uncertainty in the general population regarding:
    - What "preferential voting" means?
    - What are the advantages of "preferential voting"?
    - How is it different to "first past the post"?
    - What is the difference between the House of Representatives and the Senate?
    - How is each House voted for?
    - What is the difference between a local member and a State Senator?
    - How do we vote for each?
    - Why are there the same number of Senators for each State, even though some States have so few people in them compared to the heavily populated ones?
    - How has the voting system for the Senate changed since new laws were passed in early 2016?
    - What are some of the differences between the political parties that I am being asked to vote for and choose between?

    Agghh! ...

    If you have wondered about any of the above questions, or if you find yourself unsure about the answers to them, then this book is for you. Jim Reiher clearly and carefully takes us through the nuts and bolts of how voting works in Australia. By the end of this small up-to-date book, you will be an informed voter who actually knows how best to use that vote you are required to cast, each election!

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJim Reiher
    Release dateApr 7, 2016
    ISBN9781311603098
    Another Election? How the Voting System Works in Australia
    Author

    Jim Reiher

    Jim Reiher lives in Melbourne Australia. He has four adult children and lots of grandchildren. Jim writes both fiction and non-fiction.Regarding most of his non-fiction, Jim's serious side comes out, although sometimes he writes his non-fiction with humor, too ('Confessions of a Christian Magician' is a good example of that). Jim is a respected Australian Biblical scholar, with a MA in Theology with Honors, and 13 years of full time lecturing in Bible Colleges. Jim has published a number of books on topics ranging from Tarot Cards, to the Equality of Women in the Church, to how politics works in Australia. He has also written a number of commentaries on different New Testament books and letters: the Epistle of James, the Book of Acts, and most recently the Gospel of Mark.Jim enjoys a nice quiet walk in 'the middle of no where'; a good movie; a good book; playing ten-pin bowling; writing; and spending time with his children and grandchildren.

    Read more from Jim Reiher

    Related to Another Election? How the Voting System Works in Australia

    Related ebooks

    Politics For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Habitable Earth

      Apr 17, 2019

      Habitable Earth
      14 min read

    • Article

      The Investment We Need To Make Capitalism Work For All

      Jun 19, 2020

      ‘Capitalism’ has been misunderstood since it was coined in the 19th century. The term was first used as a criticism of the rising income gap between factory workers and factory owners. But until the early 20th century, it was rarely used; Karl Marx o

      4 min read

    • Article

      The Misanthropic History Man

      Feb 29, 2024

      IN THAT STRANGELY COMPLACENT DREAMTIME between the financial crash and the rise of populism, Yuval Noah Harari became a global superstar. The young Israeli history professor is frequently described as the world’s most-read public intellectual, while

      4 min read

    • Article

      Present Assignation

      Feb 13, 2023

      Present Assignation
      4 min read

    • Article

      Inflation Is Back With A Vengeance

      May 26, 2022

      The International Monetary Fund has painted a bleak picture for world inflation. In Australia, it expects inflation this year will be about 4%, but – fuelled by the 10% nominal economic growth forecast from the pre-election federal budget – it looks

      3 min read

    • Article

      Abandoned By The System

      Feb 13, 2022

      Abandoned By The System
      6 min read

    • Article

      We See Dreaded Stagflation Come Back To Haunt Us

      May 26, 2022

      Australia has enjoyed several decades of low inflation, but this has not always been the norm. The resurgence of inflation over the past few months has raised the possibility of wider economic problems if it is not brought under control. While higher

      3 min read

    • Article

      40 Ways Forward

      May 14, 2021

      40 Ways Forward
      27 min read

    • Article

      Deep Impact

      Dec 10, 2021

      Deep Impact
      7 min read

    • Article

      We Took Degrowth Seriously?

      Feb 13, 2022

      Continual cumulative growth is the central hegemonic pillar of mainstream economics. Growth – an accelerating frenzy of material production and economic activities – is seen as the only guarantor of security and abundance for all. It actually achieve

      2 min read

    • Article

      Europe Invaded

      Jun 27, 2024

      Europe Invaded
      10 min read

    • Article

      Reasons To Be Cheerful

      Feb 13, 2023

      A Nobel Prize-winning journalist has been acquitted of tax evasion charges, which she says were trumped up in a bid to muzzle press freedom. Maria Ressa co-founded Filipino news outlet Rappler and won the gong in 2021 for her work to ‘safeguard freed

      1 min read

    • Article

      Tanzania Is Ahead Of Schedule

      Oct 1, 2020

      Since 2015, the Tanzanian Fifth Phase Government, under reform-minded President Dr John Pombe Magufuli, has set an ambitious industrialisation agenda in pursuit of the goals articulated in its National Development Vision 2025. To achieve that, and in

      5 min read

    • Article

      Your National Identity

      Jun 19, 2023

      Your National Identity
      4 min read

    • Article

      The Nuclear Option

      Jun 2, 2023

      The Nuclear Option
      4 min read

    • Article

      Small Scale Fishers Are Ocean Defenders

      Mar 17, 2023

      Our coastlines and oceans are haunted by legacies of colonial and apartheid rule which have fashioned exclusions, dispossessions, and violent forms of epistemicide (cultural genocide) of indigenous coastal residents for generations now. Artisanal and

      3 min read

    • Article

      My Money

      Apr 28, 2022

      My Money
      2 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Another Election? How the Voting System Works in Australia

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Another Election? How the Voting System Works in Australia - Jim Reiher

      Another Election?

      How the Voting System Works in Australia.

      By

      Jim Reiher

      Smashwords Edition

      Copyright © 2016 by Jim Reiher

      Revised 2018

      All Rights Reserved.

      This e-book should not be reproduced or resold to any third party in any format.

      Table of Contents

      Three Levels of Government

      Federal Elections

      Left, Right and the Middle

      I always find it kind of weird that Australia has compulsory voting but we don’t teach the population how the system works. Some Primary Schools do a unit on politics in Grade 5 or 6, and some High School teachers might do a module with a class of students doing an elective.

      The fact is that we have compulsory voting. We are, in fact, one of the very few countries in the world that have compulsory voting, and we are right to be proud of that. Ironically, we don’t take the time to teach each voting citizen, how the voting system works.

      Wouldn’t you like to know what we mean when we talk about preferential voting? Wouldn’t it be great to understand the differences between a Senator (a member of the Federal Upper House) and a member of the House of Representatives (someone in the Federal Lower House)? Why doesn’t Australia have ‘first past the post’ system? What is that anyway? How is our Senate elected? How is that different to the way we elect people for the House of Representatives? And why it is easier for small parties to get Senators elected, than for them to get members in the Lower House voted in?

      Probably for most people the things mentioned in the last paragraph is all a bit vague.

      So… let’s change all that for you…

      CHAPTER 1

      Three levels of government in this country

      There are three different levels of government in Australia. There are:

      1) The Federal government (where we get our Prime Minister, and leader of the Opposition);

      2) The State Governments where we get a state Premier leading the government of that state;

      3) Local Councils, where we have a local mayor and a group of locally elected people to look after Council matters.

      Each level of Government has its own areas of responsibility and has its own sources of income to help do what it needs to do. Sometimes more than one level of government has fingers in the same pie in different ways (eg education) but even then they will fall more under one level of government than the other (with education: the State Government looks after that, first and foremost).

      The Australian Constitution is the document that describes how the Federal and State governments function, and the areas of responsibility each have.

      1) The Federal government looks after the big things: international relations; war and peace; international trade; immigration; overseas aid; customs and border security; refugee policy; the army, navy and air-force; national parks; national highways; the nation’s response to climate change; Medicare; national economic policy; Centerlink and social security generally; pensions; grants to state governments for specific projects; and more. The Federal government gets money from income tax and the Goods and Services Tax (the GST), as well as borrowings, and other sources.

      2) State governments look after the things that we are more affected by in a day to day sense: hospitals, schools, law and order, main roads, ports and freight; forests and logging policies; water supply; the police; the fire brigades; the ambulance service; and they have responsibility over local Councils as well. They get their revenue from their own tax sources (poker machine taxes, other gaming taxes, stamp duty, etc) as well as a grant from the Federal government each year that comes from the total GST and income tax raised.

      3) Local Councils look after the things we use and touch

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1