[csaa-forum] Asian (non-)voters

[Mark Kelly]

This brings me to mention something that I hear no-one else mentioning,
which is the number of people in Australia who didn't vote in this election
despite voting being mandatory (this is close to my heart because I am not
Australian and hence couldn't vote) - the number of voters in this election
seems to be a bit over 10 million, but politicians keep saying there are 20
million people in Australia. People who migrate to Australia as I understand
it fail in large numbers to become Australian citizens, rather having the
permanent residency status which gives them most of the benefits, but not
the vote - hence I think a lot of Chinese in Sydney, say, are still outside
the electoral process. There's also another group who don't vote, namely
Australians who aren't registered. A fair few people I know in the leftie
millieu simply aren't registered, and I wonder what effect this has on the
results, whether left-leaning people tend not to vote? Certainly it's the
case in most countries that the tendency is still that with lower
socio-economic status comes lower voting levels *and* more left-wing
tendencies.
Mark


On 12/10/04 15:38, "Indigo Williams Willing" <adoptedvietnamese at hotmail.com>
wrote:
> And did someone ask about the Chinese residents in Sylvania Waters? Diane?
> 
> All I can say is that I hope they weren't the ones cheering on Howard
> throughout the election.  As far as the 'Asian' vote goes, there's a number
> of middle-class honkies (hong kong) and former middle class/then refugee
> vietnamese in Australia who are very disturbed by anything closely left
> wing. Read any number of such diaspora studies. This is understandable given
> that Communist China and Vietnam have not been kind to them in the past.  As
> for Families First - they might also appeal.  Believe it or not,
> Christianity has a 'groovy' and exotic appeal for some Asians in the same
> way that shonky Buddhism has somehow gained 'groovy' and exotic appeal for
> Westerners.