[csaa-forum] polling booth participant observation 101

[Susan Luckman]

This thread is clearly demonstrating a need for a collective debrief/catharsis
re: the weekend on behalf of a number of us.

Danny in terms of news from on the ground at the polling booths: I spent most
of the day handing out 'How to Votes cards' (HTVs) for the 'radical greens' in
Family First heartland (Adelaide's eastern suburbs, the electorates served by
this polling booth being mostly safe Liberal Sturt but also Adelaide, one of
the few bright spots on the weekend for the ALP). 

The people they sent to the booth were white, 'nice' and generally pretty young
(late 20s and 30s). Few people would directly or only take their HTV cards, but
the Family First/Liberal pairing was a relatively popular one. Making a rampant
observation fuelled only by a day's observation, while I certainly wouldn't
want to dismiss the moral angle at play in relation to FF as they were clearly
pushing a social, not just economic, agenda, they certainly downplayed their
religious underpinnings in their media and at the polling booth. As one of
their people tried to assure me: 'yes, there are a lot of Christians who are
members of FF but we're not a Christian organisation', the money behind them
comes from 'a few rich businessmen'. This man was also at pains to say we'd
also never had it so good, which was red flag to a bull for this little poppet
who launched off into a discussion of 'who are the 'we'?' which genuinely
appeared to existentially shake him up a little briefly. So I imagine that at
some level the comparison with NZ/Aotearoa works, but they are appearing to
downplay the overt religious angle in a fashion an organisation named 'Destiny'
cannot and the mainstream media did little to make this any clearer.

Their TV campaign simply focussed on 'putting your family first'--people seemed
quite intelligently able to decode the ideological meaning behind that--and
keeping the balance of power away from the 'radical Greens' who will give 'our
kids' free marijuana--for the stragglers who hadn't yet ascertained their
ideological underpinnings.

What really troubled me about the day however, and this bodes poorly for the
future if it's something they hold on to, were the number of bored looking
18-20 year olds who went straight up to the Liberal ppl and took only their
HTV. There would have been just as many of this small age-based demographic
doing this as there were people over 30 driving European convertibles making
the same decision. I shouldn't have been surprised given I also teach in this
electorate and the looks on their faces today as I spoke about race and
representation in the media made me realise that I truly am a raving left wing
loon, but the socially tuned in demographic is an aging one if my experience
with wonderful dedicated Green-voting retirees this last weekend is any
indication. 

I also need to add that the FF/Liberal HTV combo was about as popular as the
ALP/Greens one - maybe we're one-anothers' conscience?

Cheers, Sue


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dr susan luckman 

lecturer in communication 
school of communication, information and new media 
university of south australia 

gpo box 2471 
adelaide sa 5001 

ph: 08 8302 4152 
fax: 08 8302 4745