Australia V UK

Australia: Backwards, no internet, koalas as pets. Australia politics: what? Is that even a thing? Umm Tony Abbott… and some red headed chick. England: Old, tea, The Queen, cricket. British Politics: Traditional, undemocratic, long history, Tories.

Politics by and large, in any country has the same common elements, a somewhat elected person leading some other elected people, who make decision on our behalf. Every so often we have an election to make sure the people think, the right people have power, and the wrong people don’t. We can usually see the process whereby our elected representatives make decisions that affect us, and our opinions are usually formed around what we see on television and read in the paper. Pretty standard stuff right? I mean when looking at Australia and the United Kingdom one would think the two political systems would be the same, England founded Australia, your Queen is my Queen and we are all in the Commonwealth, simple.

Not simple. In fact the differences between the two political systems are so vast I feel like I need a translation book just to get a grasp on what is going on.

First up, what is with voluntary voting? In a political system set up to represent the people, how is that even possible if not everyone votes? Australia has had compulsory voting at Federal (national) elections since 1924 and State elections not long after that, which means even if you decide to draw expletives and waste your vote, you have to get your name marked off.

Australians also hold elections on a Saturday to capitalise on BBQ sales and bake stalls, not on a Thursday when most people work and struggle to make it to polling stations before they close! Furthermore, having polling stations open until 10pm messes with the sleeping pattern of every political junkie and election guru who only hope to go to bed on election night after the results are in…. way past their bed time (unless they are watching from another time zone and in that case GO RIGHT AHEAD!)

Moving on to how votes are counted, using the First Past the Post voting system, means that even if you voted you may not have any preference towards the elected candidate as only first preference votes are counted. Back home the system of Preferential Voting (while flawed in its own ways) ensures, even if marginally, every voter has some degree of preference towards the winner, which in a democracy is what the founding fathers envisioned. And let’s not even think about the Upper House, with the UK appointing members rather than letting the electorate decide, half of the law making process is done by people who are in no way held accountable for their actions….

Once you arrive in the chamber, all those unelected peeps in the Upper House sit casting judgement over laws with no real accountability, whereas back home another name for the Upper House is the States House designed to keep the  Australian Territories and States able to have a say in national matters. I say designed because that is not usually the case anymore and party politics influence voting infinitely more than state loyalty. If all the current members of the House of Commons and the House of Lords sat in said chambers they would not all fit; that fact alone should baffle even the most politically obsessed. In the Lower House we have 150 members compared to 650 here and the Upper House consists of 76 Senators and here there a whopping 793 members. That being said the motions and procedures that take place inside the chamber are remarkably similar in both parliaments, despite all their other differences.

All in all, Australian and British politics have similar overarching systems but the devil and differences are in the technicalities. Aussies would say our system is more democratic but the British system pays more of a homage to its rich history. Neither is better, but it is just one more thing to talk about other than the Ashes….