Gam and I were sent to the Indooroopilly East polling place at St Andrew's Anglican Church. We snapped a picture of one of the houses typical of those in our area to have a 'Michael Johnson' sign out the front, thinking it would be a nice contrast if we could get some pictures of houses with a Greens/Larissa Waters sign out the front- all the ones we have seen have clearly been povvo student houses! I shot the picture rather badly, but you can see the Michael Johnson sign in the bottom left corner of the photo.
We arrived a good half hour earlier than we needed to, partly because we hadn't done this whole how-to-vote thing before and wanted tips from the Greens person there before us. 'Rosie', a girl probably in her early 20s, told us she was a fashion designer. She had a really bubbly personality and seemed to be really chatty with all the other HTV people. Apart from her, one guy who looked like he was in his mid-late 20s and one 20-ish Liberal HTV-er who I think was the daughter of one of the middle aged Liberal HTV-ers, we were the only young people there. By the time we'd been there for 4 hours we were the only young people there.
We were next to the Democrats HTV guy- a lovely, chatty old guy who works as a researched in the education department at UQ. One of those people who always have a story to tell- he was great company. Jim Page, the local Democrats candidate, showed up for a while. He seemed pretty nice too, although he gave us the title of an online essay he had written called 'the problem of the pro-war Greens' which we asked him about, and it turned out that only two of 12 conflicts he referred to in the essay were supported by the Australian Greens. He tried to associate the Greens with support for Israel's invasion of Lebanon last year because the German Greens supported it- he claimed there was a worldwide green movement and implied that somehow the Greens in Australia bore some responsibility (even though they stridently opposed Israel's invasion). So on that matter it really wound up with us having to agree to disagree. Nevertheless he seemed like a nice guy.
Want some Green?Observations:
Family First wore white t-shirts with blue and red print, and handed out HTV cards that were very similar-looking to the ALP HTV. Not cool.
You could pick the people who were going to get only a Liberal HTV card a mile off- the middle-aged ones were invariably more expensively dressed, and the women wore more makeup and high heeled shoes. Lots of young guys got only the Liberal HTV card- I could pick them a mile off too, and was only wrong on two occasions- the first being a well-dressed and sweet-looking little old lady who refused all other HTVs and when I offered her a Greens one said "oh good, the Greens!" and toddled off to vote, clutching her Green HTV! The second time was when a young guy I had pegged as a straight Lib actually came straight to me for a Green pamphlet and didn't get one from the Libs. Usually it was the other way around- very few young guys even took Greens HTV, and when young guys came in groups they often looked reluctant to stand out from their friends by taking any HTV cards that their friends hadn't picked up.
Unfortunately I could also pick the people who were going to get only a Green HTV card- most of them were 'alternative'-looking and not at all expensively dressed! I took it as a good sign that I couldn't really pick a stereotypical 'Kevin07' voter, because that meant they were getting a broader selection of the community.
There was one funny moment when a yellow Humvee pulled up. Gam and I have seen this monstrosity around town- it stands out like a sore thumb with its large size, blocky shape and wanky 'HUM 08' plates. We had the late-20s to early 30s guy inside pegged as a Liberal voter even before he got out of the car. Sure enough, he strode straight up to the Liberal HTV people and took their card when he must have overheard one of the ALP HTV ladies say something about his car and the environment (I didn't overhear the comment), because he stopped, turned around and went off his head at her before going in to vote. The Liberal HTV people looked suitably embarrassed at being even vaguely associated with this guy. On the way out he offered a parting shot about being off to destroy the environment with his car, but by this stage everyone was looking at him and laughing and he looked like he wanted to crawl into a hole and die... Gam and I even felt a bit sorry for him- he kept looking back at us like he expected us to say something rude to him because we were wearing Greens badges. I have a feeling, from his extremely defensive attitude, that the guy has copped a lot of shit for buying such a wanky car and is really beginning to regret it. Still, I couldn't stifle a giggle, especially when someone noticed that he had kept his car running for the entire time he was inside voting, after defending its environmental credentials.
At the end of the afternoon the Family First guy came around and offered everyone some jellybeans... Gam didn't want to take one, but he gave me two, so Gam wound up eating a FF-tainted Jellybelly. I hadn't had anything all day except for two coffees but I felt surprisingly fine, just a little bit sore from standing up for so long- the voter 'traffic' had slowed to a trickle by 3.30pm, so I was able to sit down for a bit.
Before we left we had permission to snap a picture of this family- Matthew, Marianne and the adorable baby Laura with her Kevin07 sticker. Unfortunately there was only a 7% swing against Michael Johnson in Ryan, not enough to oust him from his cushy 10% margin, but that was still a pretty good result for a blue ribbon Liberal seat and I'm sure they had a great night celebrating Kevin Rudd's victory :)
On the way home we again passed the house that we photographed on our way to the polling place... the owner was out the front washing his Mercedes. Heh.
4 comments:
that baby is ridiculously cute! thanks matthew marianne and laura!
I live in Griffith. I was sent by Get Up! to Runcorn Heights in the seat of Moreton. I was there for three hours and could pick the young men who were going to vote Liberal too. Get Up! was targeting undecided voters and their HTV card set out some issues comparing the various parties attitudes to those issues. Young women where the most open to Get Up!'s efforts to influence voters by giving them facts to think about while they waited in line to vote.
The most ghastly person there was a Labor party helper. She was loud and rude, heckling Gary Hardgrave when he visited the polling station! She told me in a loud voice how 'awful' the Liberal supporters were. I had no evidence of this.
She was most cringe worthy when she gave the "Chinese" language HTV cards to all Asian people even if they protested that they read English. To one group of Chinese young men she said,"You boys have been here before":(they all look alike).
I don't know the name of the Labor candidate as 'my friend' kept saying to people "Vote for our esteemed Leader" as she handed out her cards.
Eventually I could take no more and told her she sounded as though she was spriuking for Chairman Mao... She stopped then.
I left feeling that Get Up! had done a great job and 'my friend' had extracted too much information about me, my star sign and immediate family!
To one group of Chinese young men she said,"You boys have been here before":(they all look alike)
Oh dear god. What a moron. And what a way to insult people to the extent that they may well be put off voting for Labor for life... geez.
At our booth the ALP was the only party to have how-to-vote info in different languages- I was rather impressed, but less so when the Family First dude tried to jump a group of non-english speaking people who'd just picked up the ALP's chinese-language how-to-vote stuff and tried to coerce them into voting for him... what with their similar-looking HTVs and all I thought it was a bit dirty.
The Libs had a middle-aged South African woman spruiking for them and she kept saying 'Vote for Howard' as she handed out their HTVs. I couldn't help thinking that it undermined Michael Johnson's campaign literature, which has studiously avoided any mention of John Howard, focusing instead on 'local issues'. Of course, I was quite pleased at the thought!
On the other hand, I think the 'vote for Howard' thing probably works with the young guys we're talking about because they're so terrified as being seen as different and they want to be on the side of a 'winner'. Too bad they were so ill-informed they didn't pick the 'winner' this time.
We were actually warned by the lady who was to take over from us doing the Green HTV thing that we might cop some abuse- she's been doing it for years, apparently, and it does occur... I guess we were lucky in that respect- all the HTV people from other parties were perfectly civil, and the worst response we got from voters was no response.
Similar experience for my first HTV volunteering, learning quite quickly to predict the political persuasion of a voter from a distance.
Had a similar experience as you twice with a little old ladies with sticks or walking frames accept a card from me and ignore the rest. One said to me something like "I can't believe most of the others in my age group are more concerned about their pensions than the future for our grandchildren".
The other thing that surprised me was the sheer number of people who wanted to collect every HTV card so they could compare them in the booth and decide then.
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