I thought some people might be interested in this link:

You can click on your state, and find out who all the senate candidates are, including their political party, occupation and contact details (brave people!).

I find this very appealing, as a below-the-line voter; it’s always nice to know what people represent, and a certain amount can be gleaned about a person by their choice of occupation. In my case, for example, it is easily gleaned that I must be a raving lunatic – but I digress.

This is definitely much more useful than voting on the basis of people who have cool names – a tactic I have occasionally resorted to when unable to tell the difference between parties…

I’m also finding this page here a remarkably useful resource; all sorts of questions and answers about how Australian politics works, although I am mostly learning about how everyone else works… The organiser at the Greens meeting commented that the Australian Electoral Commission is a ‘national treasure’, and I’m beginning to understand what he means. I hadn’t realised today that not every country has a politically neutral group running the election – it would never have occurred to me that they wouldn’t. More and more about a certain election involving shrubbery of a dubious nature starts to become clear…