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

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[–] boogetyboo 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Thanks for the resources. I'll look into it.