We’re close to that fateful day that comes around once every few years, when we wander down to our local church, primary school or Masonic lodge to determine which men and women we think should be overpaid to mismanage our economy, lie through their caps and generally corrupt our democracy.

One thing I learned from my days in university student politics and partisan political activism a million years ago is that party hacks – myself included – will do almost anything to secure a guarantee to vote for themselves or the folk they represent. No matter which party they’re from, most of the troopers sweating out their hot Saturday afternoons distributing how-to-vote cards are earnest volunteers who don’t usually deserve the contempt or aggravation to which they’re inevitably subjected.

But that’s not to say you can’t have a bit of fun with them. After all, they desperately want your vote, so this may be your only opportunity to flagrantly abuse your temporary position of great power. Why not snap it up? Here are some tips for how to survive election day:

1

Ask the candidate to outline their party’s policies and platform through the medium of interpretive dance and/or ’80s power ballad. You can even bring some iPod speakers along and request a song for them to perform to. I imagine the Kevin ’07 kids espousing the brilliance of their great white hope to Bonnie Tyler’s ‘Holding Out for a Hero’ would be a magical experience to behold. Howard-huggers responding in kind with Tina Turner’s ‘We Don’t Need Another Hero’, leading to an all-singing, all-dancing showdown Jets v. Sharks style, could be quite precious too.

2

Bring along a couple of blue butcher’s aprons and ask the Liberal women to pop them on and recite, in appropriate voices, the entire Trude and Prue routine from Kath and Kim in which Prue asks Trude who’d she rather go to bed with: Tony Abbott or Alexander Downer. Bonus points if they throw in ‘Lisa Ho’, ‘Gaggenau’, ‘Le Creuset’ or ‘mini goat’s cheese pizzas’ without provocation.

3

If you live in Wentworth, Sydney, Grayndler, Melbourne, Melbourne Ports, Higgins or any other inner-city seat with a high percentage of queer voters, chances are the major parties will be operating by the adage of ‘sex sells’ and using some hunky volunteers in two-sizes-too-small T-shirts to hand out tickets (independent Wentworth candidate Danielle Ecuyer, for example, has already started showing off her ‘climate hunks’). If the pollies have determined gay voters are so shallow and vacuous that we’ll vote for a party based solely on how hot their polling staff are, we may as well play this to our advantage. Don’t just tell the boys we’ll vote for their candidate provided they remove their shirts and flex – go one step further and demand they demonstrate their party’s positive policies on same-sex couples by snogging each other. French. For at least 20 seconds.

4

If you wish to be a little more ruthless against your political opponents, distraction is always a trap for young players. Approach the staffer representing the party to which you’re most morally opposed and ask them endless questions about their policies and positions, feigning great enthusiasm to their responses. While they’re chatting away, they’re losing valuable ticket hand-out opportunities, but most will be too polite to tell you they can’t ‘waste’ any further time discussing policy.

5

Hand-in-hand with your same-sex partner, march up to the Family First candidate and take their ticket, insisting you want to vote for a family values party that recognises the inherent threat of overt homosexuality to children. You might wish to throw in a line about how you had to dump your last boyfriend when you made the horrifying discovery that he was gay. If you’re a lesbian, bring along your girlfriend, a large stake and ready-to-light torch, and clarify with the candidate whether you should burn her before or after you vote.

6

Ask the Labor candidate to outline their party’s policies without using the phrases ‘working families’, ‘fresh ideas’ or ‘education revolution’. Or the Liberal candidate to do the same without ‘union bosses’, ‘risk’ or ‘me-too’. Or the Green candidate without ‘accountability’, ‘sustainability’, ‘diversity’ or in fact any word ending in ‘ity’. Or the Democrats without ‘please, please, please, please, please vote for us’. You may be pleasantly unsurprised.

7

Most volunteers switch to auto-pilot after a couple of hours handing out tickets. They’ll instantly swing out their hand to the approaching voter, sometimes not even making eye contact. Test just how closely they’re paying attention by walking past them, taking all the tickets and going inside to vote – then surreptitiously double-back, attach a fake moustache, magician’s hat, set of massive Victoria Beckham sunnies or any other cunning disguise, and walk through again. See how many times the same volunteers hand you the same ticket. You may even decide on who gets your vote according to the first to twig – candidates have won votes based on much less.

If like me, you’re a simple person with simple pleasures who’s easily amused, you should get some good mileage out of these tips. Just remember, depending on who you’re rooting for on the night itself, you’ll most likely be drinking excessively in joyous celebration or to numb the searing pain. Either way, you’ll want to be in good spirits to start with. These may just help.

http://queerpenguin.blogspot.com

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