Message from the Polling Place
'Freedom parties' need to gain more volunteers, to unite, and to explain our excellent voting system
In case you only have a minute - 3 things I have learned from volunteering during prepoll this time
1. It is not too late to volunteer for your favourite party. The parties all need massive help in handing out 'how-to-votes' on May 3rd as there are so many polling booths to be covered. You do not need to be a party member to volunteer and even two hours helps raise the visibility of your preferred party. Please go to that party's website and offer your help. Or you could help your party by offering to be a scrutineer - checking the votes are being counted properly. I have found both volunteering and scrutineering to be fun and interesting experiences.
2. Freedom-minded people want the freedom parties to unite
3. Most Australians do not understand the voting system and think a vote for a small party is a wasted vote. After this election. freedom parties need to mount an advertising campaign to educate the public on how our system works. Thankfully, for this election, Turning Point Australia gives suggested how-to-votes for freedom-minded people for each electorate.
How I came to be a Libertarian
Back in the dark days of the final months of 2021, as well-meaning Australians were coerced into taking genetic vaccines the like of which had never been used in the world before, I listened to Joel Jammal telling us we must become politically active and join a political party.
I joined the Liberal Democrats and became a political being.
In May 2022, following Monica Smit of Reignite Democracy Australia’s urge that we support the ‘freedom parties’ in the Federal election, I and my husband handed out how to votes for the Liberal Democrats, the United Australia Party, Pauline Hanson’s One Nation, and the Australian Federation Party in the two weeks of prepolling and on election day.
By the way, I think it is wrong for us to have as much as two weeks of prepolling. Surely one or two days would be sufficient? I am not sure how two weeks was brought in, but it means that large numbers of Australians are voting before all the information has become available, it raises the costs of running the election and, in my opinion, increases the risk of election fraud.
Back to the 2022 Federal election. We made some of the best friends we have ever had as we got to know the our local freedom party volunteers and candidates. I was also struck by the fact that so many of them were Christians. They had principles they were prepared to live by.
We were so full of hope. The actual results for the freedom parties were a disappointment, although amalgamated, they polled about 10% of the vote in our electorate.
My learning from prepoll in 2025 so far
Now here we are in May 2025 and we are handing out how to votes for the Libertarian Party. That’s the new name for the Liberal Democrats.
Most voters have no idea who the Libertarians are. That’s not really surprising because the mainstream media does its best to pretend that the freedom parties don’t exist, and that only ‘Nazis’ would vote for such ‘far right’ parties anyway.
Voters do know about Clive Palmer and Pauline Hanson and some voters don’t like them. Australian popular belief in some quarters still has it that Clive Palmer never paid some of his employees and that Pauline Hanson is racist. These can be difficult beliefs to overwrite. Nevertheless, the animosity towards them seems much less than in 2022.
Many voters do not understand Australia’s preferential voting system. They consider a vote for a small party to be a waste. The idea that they can register their alignment with a small party, but still have their vote land with their preferred (or least disliked) major party, thanks to our preference system, is news to them.
Surely part of the job of the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) should be to explain to us all how our voting system works, including the implications for a vote for a minor party. The AEC leaflet we have all received through our door tells us mechanically how we must vote (in terms of numbering all the boxes on the green voting paper for the House of Representatives, and that we must fill in at least 6 boxes if we go above the line on the white Senate voting paper). But we are not told what the effect of doing this is and how it might benefit us. We are not led to understand the power of our preferential voting system for the lower house, nor that of the more complicated preferential and proportional voting system we have for the Senate. To be honest, I have only just grasped this latter system today as I researched this article.
The AEC does have some videos that go some way to explain the system, but they have not been included in the 2025 advertising campaign . Why didn’t it run them on TV and social media? Why aren’t Australian school-children playing with marbles modelling the system in school (as in Topher Field’s now famous video)? Perhaps the major parties would prefer Australians not to know about the system we are so lucky to have.
As a voter approaches a volunteer handing out how to votes, there’s rarely time to explain the voting system, though I have managed it on occasion.
I feel strongly that after this election freedom parties must unite and put in place ways to educate the public on how our voting system works. At the moment I doubt one in ten of us understand it. We must make that at least 8 out of 10. The dividends our small parties reap from this investment will be huge.
What voters care about
For those freedom-minded people I get to speak to there is a clear message: they want the freedom-friendly parties (as Topher Field calls them) to unite. At least the Libertarians, the Heart Party and Gerard Rennick’s People First Party have combined forces for the NSW senate. But, although I am deeply grateful for Gerrard Rennick’s consistently courageous stand on the covid vaccines, I wish he had joined an existing freedom-friendly party rather than further splitting our efforts.
Another message I am detecting, especially from young voters, is how seriously the mass immigration of the past few years is affecting them. They feel the university places and jobs that that they have toiled for in school are going to new immigrants rather than long-standing Australian citizens. Also, young adults feel the rapid increase in our population caused by the unrestrained immigration have helped to make rents astronomical and a house purchase impossible. But these young people are frightened to voice their views for fear of being branded ‘racists’.
Some might feel demoralised at how little the freedom movement has advanced in the past three years, and tempted to give up on democracy and politics altogether. But we have to remember that we are trying to move forward in an environment where our existence is downplayed and often cancelled and our views, which only 20 years ago would have been ‘central’ are now dubbed ‘far right’. The enemy (whoever they are) is a polished propagandist.
Looking back though, there has in fact been huge progress. Volunteering in 2022, when quite a few voters and volunteers were still wearing masks, we frequently encountered anger and hatred from voters. Now that is rare. When I say to people that we are sick of government bossing us about, a proportion smile in agreement. People more willingly take our how-to-votes.
And the value of parliament, where our representatives can speak their minds however unpopular their message, has been demonstrated over the past five years. I cannot imagine where we would have been now without the courageous speeches, the bills and motions put forward, and the unceasing effort and diligence of our brave freedom-minded politicians. Here are my particular favourites in alphabetical order, I am sure you will have your own!
Former MP Craig Kelly (now Libertarian lead NSW candidate for the Senate)
David Limbrick State MP (VIC)
The Hon John Ruddick MLC (NSW)
So, rather than giving up we must redouble our efforts. The fight may be harder than some of us first thought.
We must, each one of us, do our little bit. The immediate need is for us all to do that little bit on election day.
You might think about volunteering for one of the following parties (given in order of the Libertarian Party’s NSW senate preferences):
Trumpet of Patriots - btw - at least some of their How-to-Vote cards, including the one for my electorate, have been tampered with. Second and greater preferences appear to have been sabotaged. For example, in my electorate, a teal candidate was put as number two. Do check carefully that you have an amended How-to-Vote that makes sense from a Freedom point of view.
Have fun!
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I say our ballots should be treated like $10k notes, banking like security, watermarked, serial numbers.
The AEC prints 60mil for 18 mil registered voters. Easy with pre-voting to slip in votes where they need them if criminals have the access. The onus should be on the AEC to prove no voter fraud took place with absolute transparency and video surveillance of all ballot interactions.
The senate ballot is designed to be machine accessed and allocated. This gives access to electronic vote manipulation.
We simply need to move to a no trust system.
Who audits the AEC?
Who runs security for the AEC? Lots of places where fraud can be conducted.
This must be designed out.
Love this post Clare!! And would like to connect after May 4th Please check out AustraliansForAustralia.net.au which was pulled together to do a lot of what you have detailed above, especially to get the Freedom Parties working together which has happened to large extent with Gerard Rennicks People First, Heart Party, Liberterians and Family First.