How to decide your vote
How do I decide my vote?
Start with the issues you care about, then compare your views with the parties' recorded votes in federal parliament. How2Vote does not recommend a candidate or party. It puts the voting record beside your own answers, and who you put first is your decision.
What are the propositions?
For the Next Federal Election, How2Vote asks about 29 propositions: concrete policy actions the current Parliament has voted on. Each one states the action alongside the competing interest it trades off against, so agreeing and disagreeing are equally reasonable. The election hasn't been announced yet, so the propositions are provisional and may change. Choosing and wording them is an editorial judgement, and the selection is versioned and published.
Where does the voting record come from?
From They Vote For You, published by the OpenAustralia Foundation. It records each division (formal vote) in the House and Senate and gives each member an agreement figure from 0 to 100 for each policy. How2Vote averages the figures of a party's members and places the party on the same five-point scale you answer on. A party's position describes its members' recorded votes, not any individual candidate's personal views.
Does How2Vote recommend a candidate or party?
No. How2Vote does not rank parties and does not recommend a preference order. The next federal election hasn't been announced, so there are no candidates or ballot yet: your answers are compared with the parties' recorded votes in the current Parliament, as evidence only.
Compare your views
Answer the propositions on a five-point scale and see how your views compare with the parties' recorded votes in the current Parliament. When you review your answers, you can mark a strongly agree or strongly disagree answer as extremely important. Start the questions.
To read the record first, browse the propositions and how each party is recorded voting on them in Where parties stand, or follow any proposition to the divisions Division A formal, recorded vote in parliament, where members are counted for and against. They Vote For You publishes these votes, and How2Vote's scores are built from them. Full glossary behind it on They Vote For You(opens in a new tab). The scoring method is set out in full on How it works.