I’m sitting in the Labour in Vain hotel sipping a pint of dark ale. The resident tom cat is under my table and Joni Mitchell is singing about paradise long paved. Outside, the election rattles past.
The whole thing’s looking pretty tired: ragged journalists scurry behind it, lobbyists and strategists drag it along. Candidates keep falling out and crunching under the wheels. On top of the election is Antony Green with a pocket calculator and Kerry Anne Kennerly with garland of skulls.
Two power hungry men with nothing to say stage a fist fight for the shrivelling crowd. Coloured flags fray in the wind: yellow, blue, red, green and brown. Captain GetUp! gives me the finger, mimes something about far-left bias. Almost no-one watches on.
An unprecedented number of far-right extremists are running for the Senate. Since some of them are camouflaged behind reasonable sounding names, I’ve chucked together a quick guide to voting in the Senate.
Although you don’t have to, I think it’s most strategic to number every box above the line, like you would in the lower house.
The parties are in the order of the Victorian Senate ballot, with the number of my preference underneath. They’re colour coded as:
good
okay
bad
really bad
really really really bad.
I’m sure there haven’t been enough people telling you how you should vote, so bon appétit. Continue reading “Senate Guide 2019”