Australian English: your Australian election vocab list

It's on! Australia goes to the polls on May 3. Yes, expect your usual big promises, opinion polls galore and pollies (i.e. politicians) kissing babies. If you're following the relentless Australian pre-election campaign for the first time, here are some uniquely Australian election-related terms that you need to know...

Liberal
Now this is the term that causes the most confusion for people from outside of Australia. You're probably more familiar with the US-political meaning where a 'liberal' is 'a supporter of policies that are progressive and promote social welfare'. Well, forget that for Australia. A Liberal (note the capital letter) or a 'Lib' for short (this is Australia, after all) is a supporter of the Liberal Party, Australia's main conservative political party. Do not mistakenly use 'Libby' as that's otherwise traditionally a popular Australian female name, like the recent leader of the Liberal Party in Western Australia, Libby Mettam. Libs are usually centre-right, but at the way things have been going recently, they've been more MAGA-supporting – yes, a contradiction in terms. The current Liberal Party leader, Peter Dutton, has been copy-pasting Trump's policies so much that many Aussies currently label him as 'Trumpet'. So if Liberals are Conservatives in Australia, what are 'liberals' then called? This brings us to the next term...

Teals
A relatively new term, and selected by Australia's Macquarie Dictionary as its word of the year for 2022. Teals refer to a group of loosely connected, socially progressive independent politicians who are offered as an alternative for people in traditionally safe (and usually affluent) Liberal Party electorates who cannot bring themselves to voting for the nominally centre-left Labor Party (note, there's no "u" here when referring to the political party... more details here). The term 'teal', which itself is a colour mixed of blue – the colour associated with centre-right politics in Australia, and green – representing the environment, comes from the common campaign colour adopted by these politicians.

Electorate
Now you might have noticed that I used this term above. Generally in English 'electorate' is the term referring to 'all the people in a country or area who are entitled to vote in an election'. However in Australia (and New Zealand), an 'electorate' is the term used to describe an electoral division, i.e. what is called a 'constituency' in the UK, a 'riding' in Canada and a 'Congressional District' in the USA. Australia is divided into 151 electorates, all representing a Parliament 'seat' – the alternative term for 'electorate' that's also used in English variants in the UK and other Commonwealth countries. Unlike, for instance, in the UK, where constituency names are always geographical, Australia's electorates are often named after historical figures or past politicians, so that's why there's an electorate called Jagajaga (in Victoria, named after one of the elders of the Wurundjeri people of present-day Melbourne) or that the electorates of Lalor and Leichhardt are named after people and not the localities that bear the same names.

Fun fact: Australia's two largest electorates, Lingiari and Durack, are both so big that you could fit Texas or France in either of them... twice!

Corflute
A common visible aspect of Australian elections is the appearance of hundreds of standardised campaign posters featuring candidates for local electorates. These posters are usually made from corrugated plastic, otherwise known as 'corflute' in Melbourne as trademarked by the first company there to manufacture this material. Eventually the term became synonymous with these campaign posters in Melbourne, but now this regionalism has gone national particularly after a scandal involving the husband of a Teal politician posting on social media ripping the conflute of a Lib politician. As this is Australia, there are strict regulations governing election campaign materials, one of which is that all campaign posters must be removed within 24 hours of the end of an election, something that is often done with great precision and is so expected by Aussies that they find it puzzling when they go and visit other countries and see campaign posters for elections from years ago still up. There are also major fines for vandalising and/or stealing corflutes.

Democracy sausage
Since definitely the 1980s, many (not all) polling booths in Australia have usually had a stand known as a 'sausage sizzle' where barbequed sausages are on offer, with the proceeds going to raising funds for a local charity. Since voting is compulsory in Australia (yes, you must vote or else you'll be fined $20 in most states but it's $55 in New South Wales), it's guaranteed that there'll be a crowd for these 'democracy sausages', as they've been known for the past decade, which basically are snags in white bread with tomato sauce (note, not "ketchup") and optional fried onions. There have been post-grad studies and even a book about the phenomenon. Dedicated websites and social media profiles provide valuable info about which polling booths have Democracy Sausages ready, so best check those to save yourself the disappointment of missing out. Your modern-day sausage sizzle now often comes with vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, halal, kosher and locally sourced sausages and bread too, though some lament the introduction of mustard as a condiment option (to quote, "we're not bloody Septics!").

But if a sausage is not your thing, there's also often a cake stall on hand, with all proceeds also going to a local charity. To get into the mood, the cakes are often renamed with puns based on politicians' names or major election issues at the time, such as "plebi-slices" or "Malcolm Turnballs".

Preferential voting
One major Australian voting quirk is that we have 'preferential voting'. What this means is that when you receive your ballot papers, instead of ticking the candidate you want, you have to number all the candidates in order of your preference. For example, if there are four candidates, then you'll need to put 1 next to the candidate you like most, 2 next to your second choice, 3 for the third choice and 4 for the final choice. This system then prevents the need for run-offs to occur like in the other countries. It does also mean that vote counts can take days or even weeks to complete until a candidate gets more than 50% of the vote through a process of elimination of the least preferred. To ensure that people vote in a way that will count, there are always awareness campaigns in the lead-up to elections explaining to the public how this system works.

If you want your Australian content to make it past the line and be a winner in the eyes of the lucrative Australian voting public, then you're on the right team with me. Email me at info@nicknasev.com with your details and let's see how I can help you get Aussies on your side.