I’m a 21 yr old male. I was never taught anything about politics in school despite going all the way through year 12, and my Mum knows little because she doesn’t have to vote due to the year she moved here from New Zealand years before I was born, so doesn’t pay attention to the ins and outs of things in politics, and therefore didn’t teach me much throughout child-hood and teenage-hood about it.
I was born here in Australia in 2002, so I do have to vote. But I hate that every time a vote comes around, I am completely uninformed and have to vote based off of the miniscule amount of information I have which may not even be correct. If I try to use the internet to research about it, all I can find is mainstream media pushing towards one view or the other. I don’t appreciate being manipulated by media, and would rather find an unbiased source of information; so the very fact that I have difficulty finding unbiased information (or even just something approachable to a beginner) very much gate-keeps my ability to learn and be informed about what’s even going on in my country and develop an opinion that I’m comfortable with. So does anyone have any advice for me? I don’t even understand much of the basics of how the Australian government works, and what I read online about it, I find confusing, because it constantly uses political terminology it expects me to already know.
Edit: Thanks for the comments everyone, I appreciate the advice you’ve given me
Start here: https://peo.gov.au/ for basic explanations in how things work here.
Also try last year’s Vote Compass: https://votecompass.abc.net.au/ That will help you map your values to how they align with the political parties - or at least what the parties say they’ll do
When it’s time to vote, go to the actual websites of the parties and read about their policies. Don’t rely just on their names as they can be misleading. Do the vote compass every year and that will help you organise your thoughts on the parties.
You don’t necessarily need to read the news to form an opinion on parties, but do pay attention to fact checkers and the like, for example: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-10-13/fact-check-jacinta-nampijinpa-price-closing-the-gap-place-race/102966826?utm_source=abc_news_app&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_campaign=abc_news_app&utm_content=other. Pay attention to who lies and their motivations to spread misinformation.
if you want unbiased info read a maths textbook, and only the maths bits in it.
All humans are biased, all information humans produce is biased. There are degrees of bias and reliability but it is always present.
If you have specific issues you want to research your local library can help you find a variety of sources. If you need to understand how our political system works they can help you too.
I would say learn another countries politics at the same time so you can see the differences and also the similarities. You can then develop a taxonomy of structures and ideas you see in “politics” and see them through different eyes.
Sure they might be different to Australian, but in order to learn music to you wouldn’t say you knew music if you only listened to rock. To continue the metaphor, you’d want to learn a chorus, a rhythm, 4:4 timing etc.
Get a broad view and then try get your normal news, some news you disagree with and then some that seems pretty mild.
Don’t forget that topics get “politicised”, make sure you know what that means. Most topics you don’t need to know “politics” to make a decision, you just make your own decision, nothing is wrong, you’re in a democracy, every vote is equal.
I don’t even understand much of the basics of how the Australian government works
It’s a meme but if you don’t know how the government works maybe start with Wikipedia: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westminster_system
There’s also boring arse government info: here
Most of this still will probably be pretty dry, but that’s politics for you.
I am completely uninformed and have to vote based off of the miniscule amount of information I have which may not even be correct
To be honest this is probably most people. Even people who think their well informed can be way off the mark also (look at the cookers for instance). The only thing you can do is try get news from a range of sources, be careful to note what is opinion and what is not and try to analyse the source itself. All sources are biased, but some are more well researched or more truthful. Remember also that if you doubt something said in an article you can always cross check with another article, or even do a quick google scholar search (look at a few articles or try and find a review paper - most will tell you what they conclude in the abstract, which you can read for free).
Start by finding out which federal electorate you live in and your local member of parliament. https://electorate.aec.gov.au/
They also have a section about education with some great material. Here’s 20 pages on how government and voting works: https://education.aec.gov.au/teacher-resources/files/voting-in-australia.pdf
