Australian's by and large are not very ideological. With the exception of the Green's movement, there isn't really another "issues" political group that gets much attention -- or members.

Politicians are a bunch of wankers. They wouldn't be politicians if they weren't. I don't mean that in a really bad way, I just mean, being a successful politician takes a certain personality type. If you aren't rough as guts, a bit of a prick and full of yourself, you won't survive in Australian politics.

As for compulsory voting, I dig it. You should too.

There are ideological divides but we don't seem to have the hot button issues (eg abortion) that the US does. This is I believe because religion does not pay a big part in the Australian political system and our religious institutions don't tend to be hugely politically active.

The ALP (Australian Labor Party) are out "Democrats" (in the US sense; we had a Democrats party here that was something else and basically imploded 5+ years ago anyway). It has its roots in the union movement. The majority of ALP MPs (Members of Parliament, the House of Representatives, often called the Lower House) earned their stripes in the union movement, even now.

ALP support bears some correlation with being "working class" and lower socioeconomic position. Traditional supporters are deeply suspicious of anything that (allegedly) erodes "worker's rights" and of any conservative government.

On the right we have the Coalition, which is two parties: the Australian Liberal Party (don't mistake this with the US meaning of "liberal", they're conservative) and the National Party, which is much like the Liberals but only field candidates in rural seats and have a very rural focus.

Calling this a blue and white collar divide is largely accurate.

The Greens are very much on the left and, like the environmental movements in all developed nations, is largely supported by a young, discontent middle and upper classes. I say this not as a judgement but rather environmentalism is a luxury, meaning you see it in rich not poor countries.

The Greens are basically the "ALP in waiting" and deeply entrenched in university politics (meaning the kind of people who run in or care about student elections).

Also, the Greens are gaining like crazy right now. Probably for two reasons: One, before about 4 years ago, there was 13 years of Liberal government (once again, they are capital-L Liberals, not lowercase-l liberals). And then the "left" party came into government, and it turns out that hey, they're actually centre-right. I mean they're actually centre-right. They're not left at all, not on the economy (which I'm okay with), and not on moral issues (which I'm less okay with). So the greens are picking up voters that wanted a more progressive government, and whom voted Labor, and whom were then disappointed. The Greens picked up a seat in the Senate, are polling about 15% in Victoria for the State elections. So they're becoming influential at the expense of Labor.

The amusing thing is that in addition to the ideological divide within the Liberal party itself (between true small-L liberals and conservatives), the Liberal and National parties are not obviously ideologically compatible either -- the Nats are basically social conservative agrarian socialists. :-)

With environmental issues the Nats could do well to team up with the Greens in a lot of areas. But it would be a case of "don't mention the war" for the social issues.

> American voting is under-informed and has low turn out, but at least the few percentage of electorate that vote actually care.

I think politics among the US electorate is exactly analogous to bikeshed discussions on a mailing list.

I think its a cultural thing. Most people in the US (In my very uninformed opinion, mostly based on television/movies), are very explicit in their political stand.

In India, its assumed almost sinful to ask for political stance/ "Who are you gonna vote for" in the urban society. (It may be illegal too, not sure)

In the US, asking who someone who they're going to vote for is still taboo (at least in my opinion), they're just more likely to tell you their political stance. Plus, it's pretty easy to determine based on any number of things (do they talk about what they heard on the news last night? how do they view the current administration? government in general?).

Granted, I'm not American, but I think I've been here long enough to qualify for all intents and purposes.

In the US, very infrequently does anyone ask anyone else who they're voting for. In fact, talking about politics can very quickly turn into a nasty argument.

You're also correct about generally being able to tell someone's political leaning.

Another thing is that the 2 parties (republican and democrat) are very clearly opposed and distinct. And every republican I know very strongly identifies with being a republican (and my guess is that they vote republican unquestioningly straight across the ballot). Surmise from that what you will.

Aussies downplay a lot of things, some Aussies anyway. They pretend they don't care, don't know, haven't worked hard on something, aren't affected etc. In some ways this is exactly opposite to Arabs.

Voluntary voting in the US has one strange effect: politicians no 1 goal is to get "their" group to vote. Each side has a relatively fixed (and roughly equal) group of voters. Most of them stay home. The side that gets their group voting, even at the expense of a few defections, wins. That creates weird politics.

However, that is not the case everywhere. In lots of places the paradigm is a fixed group (possibly a minority) of voters who shift alliances more easily. A multiparty system encourages this.

I suspect that most defectors are actual abstainers, not defectors.

I think you'll find that people in NSW wholly consider the state government to be mindless wankers, because they are. State governments all over Australia are completely inept. Most people will have someone in Federal politics that they like, though and I think the view generally of Federal politics is far less cynical, and where true political allegiances come to light.

Side note: While showing up and getting your name marked off on election day is compulsory in Australia, actually voting properly is not. It is perfectly OK (though frowned upon) to get your form and put it straight into the box, which is counted as an "informal" vote, the same as if you had written in the wrong space on the ballot form.

The recent election was a very close race between the two major parties, and also had one of the highest % of informal votes in recent history, which is some measure of the unhappiness of voters with the choices they were given.

Australia is one of my most favourite places on Earth (Canada being the other, particularly Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver). I love Queensland myself. Bris vegas is a beautiful city. The only place I didn't like was Woden in Canberra, and I can see why Aussies are contemptuous of any Politician that lives in Canberra.

I think everyone should go to Australia at some point, visit the beautiful country. I also think everyone should go to Canada. Amazing places at opposite ends of the world.

"you will have a hard time if you're a self-righteous prick"

So how come nobody has told those internet censor wankers that a joke's a joke, they've had their fun, and now it's time to get back in their box before they feel the back of your hand?

Because it's largely inaccurate and Australia is packed with self-righteous pricks, they're just self-righteous about things other than the author originally implied.

The subset of us aussies who actually know about censorship largely have.

The trouble is, there isn't enough of us who care.

Poor bastards in NSW... they've had the same corrupt Labor government for what, fourteen years now? The tragedy is that the opposition don't have to be much better to win, they just have to not fuck a goat on live TV.