Who do I vote for this Saturday? It’s the question many people are pondering over this week. So I’m a thoughtful, generous kind of guy and I thought I’d offer some insight into the coming federal election, who to vote for and how your vote will count.

Disclaimer: Ultimately I am just one man, with my own personal bias and emphasis, if you follow my guide to the tee then you’re probably an idiot and need to go home and rethink your life.

#ausvotes

Let’s make some opening statements:

• The only people in the whole universe that are “Voting for Julia Gillard” are those lovely constituents in the seat of Lalor in Victoria. Unless that’s you, you’re not voting for Julia Gillard.
• The same point stands for the people of voting age and capacity in Warringah who are voting for Tony Abbott
• It almost goes without saying that either Labor or Liberal will hold the balance of power after the election. Whichever party that is, chooses a leader, they are Prime Minister. This leader can change at any time if the party decides.

Vote locally

When you lodge your ballot form on Saturday, you’ll be voting for a local candidate and then you’ll also be voting for the Senate. In this section we’ll focus on voting for a local candidate in the House of Representatives. The Senate will come up soon.

There will be a number of candidates standing for election in your seat/electorate and you need to choose one. Don’t donkey vote like Mark Latham, you’ve got this opportunity to vote so take it.

We’ve been well introduced to the policies of most of the parties of late, the purpose here is to bolster your local candidate’s profile with national action. Not an overly bad thing, but we need to remember that only a handful of these policies ever get enacted, usually the ones the losing party also likes, or the ones that have great support nationally. I’ll be looking for local action from my candidates, something I recommend you do too. Look at their websites, facebook and twitter accounts and see what they’re doing locally.

Vote nationally

Most of your local candidates will be a member of a political party that have national policies, look at the ones that not only benefit you but think about others, then make a decision.

Vote for those who can’t vote

There’s much social policy being introduced, this affects people who can’t vote, namely

• babies, children and teens
• asylum seekers
• victims of war
• victims of disaster
• victims of corrupt or poor governments

Think about whether your vote will enact positive change for these people

Vote for God

Got ya! haha, I’m joking. God doesn’t need your vote. Seriously.

Many of you who read this page don’t believe in God or at least think he doesn’t matter, that’s ok because that’s your personal issue to deal with and you’re welcome to skip down to the quick and simple Senate section, but further on from here is my opinion from a faith viewpoint.

If you do have a faith in God then you’re probably thinking that Family First or the Liberals or the Christian Democrats are the party for you to vote for, I’m here to tell you they aren’t.

God, inherently by nature, is God. That’s a hard concept to get a hold of because we’ve sometimes been lead to believe that God might get kneecapped or kidnapped if we vote for the wrong party. This would only happen if we saw a Labor Government elected for a third term, so obviously thats not the case here (that’s another joke, sorry).

Some Christians will vote because they feel that voting for the Christian party will alleviate some of their community responsibility and make their ministry easier. After all it’d be much easier to vote for an anti-abortion party than actually find women in your community that are in the position of getting an abortion and coming alongside them and helping them. To the people who want their ministry burden relieved or their persecution lifted, close this window, go home and read your bible, try to squeeze some of the first chapter of James in there. Maybe the book of Acts as well. Most of it actually, read most of it.

We also will beat the “Godly laws” drum, hoping to get the 10 Commandments and our many derivative interpretations instigated as law. First of all, you’ll notice that God himself even simplified the 10 commandments, which isn’t a huge number on their own, to two. In fact there was a time where there was only one law. God in fact, according to my bible, preferred the time when there were no kings and laws. I’ll let you interpret the bible as you like, but my simple thought is this:

God can still be God, can still act as God and his word can still be his word under any government that is elected.

Second to that, I believe that God is all powerful, if he is then he probably has some power and influence in elections, some of which we may never understand.

Thirdly, we’re given free will but we’re also given the opportunity to pray and seek guidance. I highly recommend you do that instead of reading any more guides 0r posting any more on Facebook and Twitter seeking the popular opinion or vote.

Vote for the Senate

This one’s dead easy – go to www.belowtheline.org.au

Still Stuck?

Vote for an independent, or the Sex Party, or the Greens. Just because it will make for great conversation after the election.