Avoid The Fine

Summary

Policies & Commentary

Back in the day when I was at uni, an election was held for our Student Representative Council. The usual mix were there – Labor, Liberal, Socialist Alternative, a few unaffiliated candidates – and one party with the enticing name of “Free Beer”. It claimed to be vaguely left-leaning, and laid on the alcohol at its events. The problem was, “Free Beer” was a shill for the Liberal Party, the name deliberately chosen to deceive student voters and capture their votes.

It worked. A majority Liberal SRC was elected – and our university went through a miserable year of cuts to certain student clubs, as well as the abolition of recycling programs, counselling for women who’d suffered sexual harassment or assault, and the queer collective. That SRC responded to criticism from me in an article by threatening to sue.¹Spoiler: they didn’t carry out their threat, after getting roundly called out by a student assembly.

So, when I found out that two known far-right conspiracy theorists, Monica Smit and Avi Yemini, were setting in motion a co-ordinated plan to register parties with deceptively progressive names and then funnel their votes to One Nation using Victoria’s Group Ticket Voting procedures, it was deja vu all over again.

I’m Voting to Avoid the Fine (hereafter referred to as VAF) is registered in the name of Daniel Smit, Monica’s brother – although, curiously, Monica’s details are given as the contact for its candidates. Its ostensible reason for existing is to prove that democracy works best when participation is voluntary, informed, and genuine, not compelled by the threat of a fine. However, in the video hosted on its website, Monica and Daniel’s co-conspirator, Avi Yemini, makes it clear that its real purpose was to harvest votes for One Nation.

It has no listed policies. It claims to be running candidates, in the same electorates as Yemini’s Free Palestine Party and Monica Smit’s Climate Action Now, but there’s no information about them. It has no social media presence whatsoever.

As for its mission statement – well, it’s nonsensical. Vote for us rather than vote informal or get a fine for not voting, because compulsory voting is bad.

Now that Group Ticket Voting has been abolished, it cannot carry out its original purpose, and now it would have you believe that it is a genuine protest party whose aim has always been to “improve” the quality of voting by doing away with Australia’s mandatory voting system. This is laughable, given the clear evidence to the contrary.

I won’t waste time going into all the reasons why VAF’s claims about compulsory and voluntary voting are wrong. I’ll simply refer you to the Australian Electoral Commission’s explainer.

VAF is just another attempt to deceive the electorate. Give it the consideration it deserves – none.