Will you join our overseas volunteer team?

2019-04-26

In the upcoming federal election, every single vote will count. That includes those cast by the thousands of Australians living overseas – and we need your help to reach as many of them as possible before May 18.

By Vivienne Glance


In the upcoming federal election, every single vote will count. That’s why all the door-knocking and phone banking that so many of you are doing is so important. But we need to reach out to as many Australian voters as we can, and that includes those living overseas.

During the last federal election, over 71,000 Australians voted overseas. This is a sizeable number and in a tight election these votes could mean winning or losing a seat. Of these, over 25,000 people voted in Europe, with nearly 16,000 of them voting in London.

In China, over 10,000 Australians voted with nearly 7,000 voting in Hong Kong. Also, in the Americas, north and south, over 10,000 votes occurred with more than 3,000 of them from New York.

For other major cities overseas like Bangkok, Beijing, Berlin, Guangzhou, Ho Ch Minh City, Paris, Shanghai and Vancouver, they all had over 1,000 Australian overseas votes received according to the Australian Election Commission (AEC).

But only 1,174 of these overseas votes were postal votes, which shows it’s essential we have a good on-the-ground presence worldwide to ensure we can get our Greens message out to voters.

As I’m sure many of you know, a lot of people make up their mind on how to vote at the polling booth. Seeing people in Greens t-shirts handing out how-to-vote cards is also our chance to talk about our great policies, and could help voters decide to vote for the Australian Greens.

So what can you do to help?

  • If you are living overseas, or have family, friends or colleagues living or working in another country, please urge them to ensure they are registered to vote and that they either arrange to visit their overseas polling booth during the pre-polling time, or on election day.
  • If you want to use a postal vote, you can request this online once the election date has been announced (see below). But you must already be registered to vote in an Australian electorate, so check your enrolment. Then you need to register as an overseas voter, and it will take two to three weeks for a postal vote form to be sent to you in the mail.
  • Ask them if they would like to join our overseas volunteer team. This way, we can contact them with important information on how they can help us reach Australian voters in their country
  • Share Greens social media as it is posted, tagging overseas Australian friends and family, sharing invitations to overseas events, and encouraging them to sign-up for polling booths in their country
  • Like the Australian Greens Go Global Facebook page, where we will post as much as we can about our overseas voting campaign.

The Australian Election Commission has some important information on how to vote overseas, including ways to vote overseas.

Our Australian Greens election platform outlines our plan for a future for all of us, both in Australia and for those Australians living overseas. Help us reach them – or if you are reading this from overseas, please join our team – and let’s build our vote overseas!

Vivienne Glance is the Australian Greens International Secretary.

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