A Very Depressing Guide On Who To Vote For, By A Self-Described Political Novice

Like a lot of young people voting for the first or second time tomorrow, I don’t know a huge amount about politics. I’m a recent graduate who passionately complains about climate change and the fact I’ll never own a home, but I still eat my mum’s food because I do things like spend $24 on colour Textas. My understanding of true responsibility is pretty vague; it feels appropriate that my understanding of politics is even more so.

But I’m old enough now to know that wilfully not adulting and shrugging your shoulders cutely when it comes to politics is a bit of a cop out, especially because I’m not super chill with the way things are. Like our policy towards asylum seekers, how we mindlessly cut funding to arts institutions and still lean on tradition (read: religion) more than we should. Also that old nugget about how houses are stupidly expensive and we willfully ignore that our planet is deteriorating. It’s time I actually took initiative to try and figure out how the major parties will help this adulthood of mine I’ve got coming up.

So this time round, I decided to try and get around the noise and do some research so I can vote based on who actually has the best policies. But that seemingly simple project turned out to be a lot more confusing and frustrating than I’d hoped, and way more than it should be. I’m left wondering how on earth a regular, disenchanted young person is supposed to make an informed decision about the seemingly hopeless institution of Australian politics.

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What I Knew Before I Started

My understanding of politics is a mixture of what my Dad tells me and what my gut gets enraged seeing in a headline on my news feed. Actual knowledge is limited, as is a realistic consideration of what politicians can actually achieve. I tend to lean to the leftier side of politics, as it feels more accessible and easy to understand.

I do know that Malcolm Turnbull is the guy my stepmum calls “very handsome”, Bill Shorten is the one whose face I keep forgetting and Richard Di Natale would shoot a quick, judging glance to a friend if you ever let slip that you find Shakespeare boring.

I also know that Liberals are the buzzkill conservatives, I know that Labor are also like that but take more photos with tradespeople and the Greens would send the country broke from buying each person a karma cup and reusable shopping bags.

I also know that people cannot get enough of saying “they’re all as bad as each other!” to avoid any deeper conversation about politics, and I’m guilty of this too.

So, what about their policies? To keep things simple, I went straight to what I assumed would be the best source of actual information: the websites, campaign ads and public statements of the three major parties. Yet whenever I tried to find what I wanted it felt like any answers were trying to run away from me.

For example, on the Labor website, their policies are hidden under squares titled with stuff you’d need to know about before you get there. Like, ‘National Parks Trigger’ or ‘Creative Industries, Creative Country’ or ‘Defending Australia: Future Frigates’? What is a ‘frigate’? Can I eat it? Is it a delicious frozen snack? Can I have one?

I found myself unable to find any of the tiles I’m interested in because they’re hidden among nonsense. Labor likes to remind you there’s 100 of them; something I realise I’m supposed to find impressive, but I very much do not.

The Liberal Party website isn’t much better. When you click to learn more about their platforms, you have to scroll all the way down to the bottom to find one that actually sparks any sort of interest. (It’s about climate change, and it’s underwhelming. But more on that later.)

Also, both Labor and Liberal websites look like where you would go to buy stock photos on sale.

I can’t say the feel of the Greens site is much better. Theirs looks like one of those volun-tourism websites you researched when deciding whether to go on a Gap Year or not. The platforms are so inspirational it makes me queasy.

All of them do little else than make a point and mention how the other parties does not do that point. It’s an endless game and it’s impossible to keep track. It was at this point that my forehead started to hurt from frowning.

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Sorting Through The Noise

I figured I should write down issues I really, really care about and see which party will help address them. Ensuring a safe and humane transition of asylum seekers into our country? Top of the list! Allowing couples of the same sex to marry? Has to be on there. Taking serious action against having our one and only planet earth simultaneously flood and burst into flames? That too.

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Asylum Seekers

Our current reprehensible treatment of asylum seekers has been condemned worldwide, so it’s no surprise that it’s been tipped as an issue that could make or break the election. Which makes sense, because it “makes” me incredibly sad and “breaks” that old silly idea I had about good triumphing over evil.

The Libs want to keep doing exactly what they’ve been doing: detain asylum seekers in offshore processing camps on Manus and Nauru Island and then trickle just over 13,750 of refugees into the country. They will continue this policy, continue to turn back boats and promise to lift the number of people from just over 13,750 to 18,750. Which is an approach about as nice as a slap in the face. That’s all the info I could get before a whiny summary explaining how Labor are not as good as they are at this particular thing.

Sadly, Labor have taken a similar approach, something I found out once I finally located that pesky tile with the info in it. I assumed it would be in the ‘Tackling Inequality and Disadvantage’ section but it wasn’t.  It was in the ‘Australia’s Place in a Changing World’ section under  ‘Immigration – Increasing the Humanitarian Intake’, as if they purposely didn’t title it with the words ‘asylum seekers’ or ‘refugees’ so no one would find it. They promise to keep doing what the Libs are doing but increase our intake of refugees to 27,000.

The Greens hide their policy under ‘Our Vision’ (ugh) but title it ‘A Better Way For Asylum Seekers’, which is nice. They want to completely shut down the processing camps, allow a 30 day maximum on processing and increase our intake of refugees to 50,000.

For me, actually shutting down the camps is the only policy worth any time and the transparency on the Greens website feels reassuring.

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Same-sex Marriage

The fact we have to question whether or not two people that love each other should be legally wed is a weird dystopian scenario, made even weirder by the Liberal Party’s promise to hold a lengthy public vote asking whether we agree or not. I didn’t find this info in the “Helping Families Get Ahead” section, which is where all of their major policies lie, but in a random Q&A press release that popped up after I typed ‘marriage equality’ in the search bar.

Hm. I know I don’t know politics that well, but isn’t the whole point of voting in parties for them to make decisions for us? Not to delegate them?

In a move that makes Labor seem remarkably more in touch, they want to legislate marriage equality as their first act of parliament if they get elected. They included this info on one of their tiles labelled ‘Marriage Equality’, because they’re clearly they’re proud of this one and want us to find it. The Greens are on the same page. We got two out of three, so common sense does exist in some corners of politics.

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Climate Change

I care about climate change because disaster movies give me the creeps, so I’d rather my life not become one. The parties are cottoning on to the fact that the rest of Australia agrees, so all three parties list it as a major policy.

In their environment policy, the Liberals list a lot of stuff about The Great Barrier Reef and tackling that whole problem we apparently have with feral cats, which is great. But it makes me suspicious they ’ll focus more on that than anything else. Kind of like when you set out to clean your house but you procrastinate by organising your Tupperware drawer instead and your sister comes home and yells at you and you’re like, “But the Tupperware drawer has never looked better!”

But suspicions aside, they promise to ensure 23 percent of energy is renewable by 2020 and enact an Emissions Reduction Fund that gives money to businesses that reduce their carbon emissions. This seems to just mean that the huge corporations with lots of dollars aren’t going to really care because they’re not being punished and they don’t need to be rewarded.

Labor have a whole section dedicated to “Acting On Climate Change”, which is another way they tell us how proud they are of being cool and transparent. They spread their policies over 16 different tiles, which would be impressive if I were bothered to read all of them. They want 50 percent of energy to be renewable by 2030 and zero pollution by 2050. They also want an emissions trading scheme to cap the amount of companies emitting pollution, which sounds like a way better approach.

The Greens, meanwhile, want 90 percent of energy to be renewable by 2030 and an end to fossil fuel subsidies for big polluters and a price on pollution.

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So, What’s The Takeaway?

This whole ‘trying to care’ journey I embarked on was exhausting, and a crease formed in my brow that I swear was never there before. Is this what it’s like for every young Australian who tries to make sense of the political landscape? Am I stupid for finding it so confusing?

When it comes down to the policies, the parties don’t actually seem so similar after all like everybody likes to say. The Greens speak to my idealistic side, the Liberals are ruining the party and Labor run back and forth between the two.

I responded to the sense of transparency I felt from The Greens’ policies, but they also seemed too good to be true. It felt like there’s something missing from their whole platform that I’m too naïve to see. That something is probably, like, ‘economic growth’.

Labor don’t seem too bad, but I feel a little rattled at their non-attempt of tackling the asylum seeker issue. I also can’t endorse a Prime Minister whose face and existence I keep forgetting.

The Liberal Party are homely in the sense they remind me of my conservative parents, but they’re straight up comic book levels of evil so no, thank you. They also did nothing to convince me, or any young people like me, that they care about our opinion in any way, as if they had given up before they started.

I also have to acknowledge that the issues I really cared about only made room for a left leaning party to swoop in and console me. That’s what The Greens have usually done and even when I tried to do something different, they did it again.

So I’ve resigned myself to another Greens vote, I guess. But not for lack of trying. It took time and a whole lot of wanting to die. I’m not sure what it’s like for other disinterested people who don’t have this sort of time on their hands to sort through crap piles. But if you were thinking about it, I’ll send my condolences.

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Josephine is a writer from western Sydney who likes to blatantly lie on her bios. She played the youngest sister in ’80s sitcom Family Ties and looks fantastic running with a backpack on.