Who will I vote for this Saturday?
I have found this great survey of 20 or so questions, you put in your postcode and it works out who you would best be voting for in your electorate and in what order you should put your preferences.
This lady (profile below) came up for me as a 79% match…all I did was answer the questions honestly…can you guess what party she belongs to? These sure look like the type of values any Kingdom of God minded person would have…surely?
Profile –
I have worked as a high school teacher, run a registered child care centre, and worked at the Edmund Rice Centre for refugees. I am a carer for family members and the mother of two adult children.
My interest in social justice began at the age of 12, when I founded a club to help the elderly and disabled with household tasks.
I have since volunteered for church groups and community service organisations such as the Red Cross, City Mission, Scouts and refugee support services. As an undergraduate I tutored underprivileged students, and have continued to do this in Australia.
I was inspired to become environmentally active through the protests against Mindarie rubbish tip and the destruction of old growth forests in the South-west.
The Tampa crisis and the ‘children overboard’ incident induced me to take a more active political stance…. against war, for social justice and for environmental protection match my own values.
No Guarantees 
I’ll make a call and say ‘Greens’
ya reckon?
I dunno – but I got an 86% match with our local Green.
I think it’s an extremely biased poll.
I think if you base your vote purely on that survey, your a bit foolish
can anonymous explain a bit more? i am genuinely trying to work the bias out and am so far unable… but hey, they tell me i’m not the sharpest tool in the shed.
i’ve been going through the quiz taking on differnet pseuydonym characters… like the racist, sexist alpha male, or the concerned overcautious mother, or the capitalistic business man. !!! real funny when you take on the persona of a psycho and the quiz gives you a 89% match up to a certain party!! (i won’t tell you which.. you can figure it out)
i must have the same bias as the person that wrote the quiz because i still can’t find it anonymous.
if you think the Getup! survey is biased – you should check out the survey questionnaire the festival of light crew did (see here – http://www.fol.org.au/). But we’d be pretty ignorant to think that bias wasn’t at the heart of this entire political game.
Foolish is voting a certain way without researching
Foolish is voting a certain way because someone tells you to
using any tool, like this one, to help compare your current thoughts and beliefs is however, pretty wise.
Go the Greens!!!
I assume by your comment ‘go the greens’ you’ve REALLY researched their policy!!
i certainly have and, as Scott said in his post, i feel they most closely represent my understanding of Kingdom values.
Now before anyone jumps on the abortion, homosexual, prostitution bandwagon, I said “they most closely represent what I understand to be Kingdom principles” not “they believe in Jesus and desire to see our nation become truly Christian”.
When I compare Labour, Liberal, Greens/Democrats, and the couple of Christian parties running for election, I really do believe the Greens are closer than any of the other options as the group seeking to uphold MOST of the values I see fleshed out in Jesus.
The Christian parties represent a biblical fundamentalism that frightens me, and does not represent what i believe to be Jesus values – I feel they go closer to pharasaical self-righteousness, which has always been in essence – anti-christ. Anyone that says, “do you want a brothel in your street because that’s what will happen if the greens get their way!!! vote for us, the balanced party” is so unbalanced that i would struggle to willingly give them a sharp object for the fear they might stab someone who doesn’t agree with their policies.
Liberal – well, I’m sorry but they have continuously missed the boat on some of the most crucial contemporary issues, including:
* continual deliberate human rights violations regarding immigration (mandatory detention) and international terrorism (illegal reign of terror against the people of Iraq and Afghanistan)
* indigenous issues (undermining land rights legislation, forced legislation of the intervention into the NT despite the recommendations of indigenous and non-indigenous groups, chrsitian and non-christians against such a decision)
* environmental neglect (failing to ratify the Kyoto Protocol)
*the erosion of protection for workers (deunionisation of the workforce) and,
* the incessant drive to create an unsustainable lifestyle of excess as the indicator of a truly “good life”
Labour, well – at the end of the day, they are one up on Liberal in that they haven’t been responsible for the above Liberal discrepancies (admitedly, they haven’t had the chance, but we’ll see after this weekend)
Yes biased indeed, You would be blind not to see the bias. But I have yet to see one that is not. See Udderendup comment above as well.
In fact I have/had not decided to vote Greens when I did the poll, it was just interesting to see how it came out.
Bek, dead right – if I based my vote on a survey it would be just as silly to base my vote on comments I read in the West Australian or watch on the Ch 9 (or whatever) news.
Yes, all surveys are biased. Surveys are tools. If you care about the issues that Festival of Light asks candidates in their survey, it’s a useful tool. If you don’t care about those issues, then you won’t use the survey.
The problem with the GetUp! survey is questions like “Overall economic growth is less important than reducing the gap between the rich and the poor.” This presupposes that one is opposed to the other. I don’t agree with that assumption.
Or, “Tough penalties for drug users are a better way to deal with illicit drugs than decriminalisation.” Again this presupposes that these are the only two choices when it comes to drug policy.
Also, I was disappointed that only the Greens, Labor, LDP, and One Nation showed on my electorate. This skews the results of a survey that presents itself as neutral.
I think we are all fairly decided on how we will vote tomorrow, anyway. Anyway, I raise my glass to you all knowing that we all want peace and prosperity. We just don’t agree on how that comes about. But, hey, that’s democracy. I love our system and the opportunities it grants.
Happy Election Day!
“Also, I was disappointed that only the Greens, Labor, LDP, and One Nation showed on my electorate. This skews the results of a survey that presents itself as neutral.”
This aspect of the process is not skewed by the survey but rather by the failure of candidates to respond. In electorates where they did respond the views are fairly accurately represented.
The questions that were chosen are designed to elicit a ‘values’ response from the voter which is then aligned with the values of the candidates as they responded to the survey. The question of mutally exclusive queries doesn’t matter as this is a qualitative measure not a quantitative one – and there is a neutral option.
It is worth reading the survey methodology before saying it is ‘biased’. Andrew Robb from the Liberal party has levelled this criticism at the survey – but HE DIDN’T BOTHER TO RESPOND! I don’t know what he expected.
If a candidate didn’t respond the survey gives the next best match – I did the one for Andrew Robb using the Liberal party platform as the guide to my responses – and got the Labor candidate, but only at a 50% match. If he’d bothered to respond I reckon it would have been around the 80-90% match with him.
As it says on the survey:
“Despite our best efforts to get all candidates to participate, many candidates, including 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 on behalf of its endorsed candidates. Any candidate for whom a survey response has not been received cannot be allocated the number 1 preference(or another preference above that of candidates for whom a response has been received) on how-to-vote cards generated by this website, regardless of your response to the survey. If you would like such a candidate to participate, feel free to contact them directly and encourage them to complete the survey.”
Read the rationale and the methodology then tell me the flaws.
I just wonder what you all consider more important. The environment or the family, YOUR family?
Just wondering….’cause I can see it kinda headed only one way which is sad.
Bec,
As most of us who you have put the question to, actually have our own families, made up of a married relationship (there’s the marriage angle) and a number of children (there’s the family angle), I hope you are able to see how ignorant your question might come across (ignorant not arrogant).
Family is of the utmost importance to me, and that is exactly why I voted the way I did. The way I care for our planet is not more important than my marriage or my children, nor is it any less important – they are one and the same thing.
Unfortunately some of the “balanced” parties seem to feel it was necessary to make ridiculously emotional statements which pitted the family against the environment, or christian marriage values against homosexual union, or 100% prohibition against harm minimisation strategies for drug use and prostitution as being not only mutually exclusive, but as representing the TRUE christian values.
Unfortunately, in my opinion, all these parties have successfully achieved is to reinforce a culture of biblical fundamentalism based on fear and ignorance.
I wish for a day when our parties are able to promote themselves based on what they value without having to point the finger and smear the other as the ENEMY – something the CDP was hell bent on doing this year in relation to the Greens. For me, they lost their integrity in the process of trying to make the Greens out to be some sort of evil party, instead of simply focussing on their own beliefs and values. Maybe if they had have stuck to Lk 6:41-42 as their core advertising principle, they might have been more faithful to the cause of Christ.
but that’s just my 2c.
I appreciate your enquiry though bec, and hope you are able to catch some sort of a glimpse from this side of the fence
I wasnt having a go. I was just asking.
Good grief, I wont make any more comments if Im just going to get shot down for asking a simple question.
Forget I said anything.
Sorry bec but I think you might be a little to sensitive… udderendup was stating this point clearly, respectfully I thought…
like i said bec, “ignorant is not the same as arrogant”. Ignorance has to do with a lack of understanding – this is not necessarily something you can do anything about, and it is definitely not necessarily negative.
I was not attacking you, but apologise if you felt to the contrary.
You questioned my priorities – remember? “YOUR family” and in your own words… “cause I can see it kinda headed only one way which is sad.” That was my point exactly – you can only see one point of view, and that is a point of view that does not include having your own children to consider when voting.
My intention was simply to reassure you that as a christian, a man, a husband and a father, I voted Green, then Labour, with all those things at the forefront of my mind.
You asked… I replied. If that offends, sorry once again.
Heck Bek
Hey I keep reading and reading the comments made by Otherendup trying to see a place offense could be taken, the closest I come is the ignorant/arrogant comment. But when I personalize that comment I would be the first tho put my hand up and say there is much much much that I am ignorant about.
I guess I am saying, be passionate, but be open to discussion…please?
An interesting comment on morals and elections etc is written by Jim Reiher from Tabor Vic.
Have a read – http://www.australianchristian.org.au/
index.php?art/id:943