| It’s still a week until polling day in the Australian federal election but in London, the voting is already in full swing.
“There are some seats that have been decided here in this booth,” one of Labor’s veteran booth workers tells me outside, as he hands out how-to-vote cards for his party.Members of Australian Liberals Abroad, including president Jason Groves, centre, outside the Australia House polling station.It’s pretty quiet at about 5pm on a weekday afternoon when I visit. A purposeful straggle of Australian-accented punters are dropping in to vote on their way home from work.
But Australia House, the grand dame of the country’s diplomatic network, is keeping the tradition alive. “It’s a big effort to get it covered over the two weeks,” says Paul Smith, president of the UK branch of ALP Abroad, who has been on the booth outside Australia House at federal and state elections since 2007.
The volunteers say it’s more sociable, relaxed and varied than working a booth on election day in Australia itself.“In a booth back home it’s usually a more transactional process, whereas here you get some of that camaraderie of Australians overseas,” says Jason Groves, who has presided over the UK branch of Australian Liberals Abroad for two decades.
The building’s marble-clad and gloriously chandeliered Exhibition Hall, where the ballot boxes and voting cubicles are set up, famously featured as Gringott’s Bank in the firstcosplay,” suggests one of the party workers. There’s still time to organise a few goblin costumes, if anyone from the Australian Electoral Commission is reading this.
There was no democracy sausage for me yesterday :(