墨尔本PTE素材库——Voting Changes

墨尔本PTE素材库——Voting Changes

中文批注：

这篇文章主要说了澳洲有可能实行的选举制度的改革~要知道，澳洲是强制选举的，很多选民根本就不知道选的议员是谁。假如，选举制度能够成功改革的话，团体投票将会替代个人投票。但同时，也有人表示担心，这样会直接导致选举结果不公，完全按照其他党派的喜好来投票，并不能很好地制定出良好的政策。

这篇文章是典型的政治类话题。单词并不能，但相对来说，话题比较生僻，学生不是特别熟悉，因此要格外注意~

澳大利亚语言学院整理的墨尔本PTE素材库，综合了各种PTE Academic考试可能会涵盖的各大话题，帮助大家尽可能的提前熟悉、练习。在考场要是碰到类似的话题真的是爽歪歪啦！不单学习了相关的词汇，也能够练习听力和阅读哦！比如说，听完了这个视频，大家是否能summarize一下主要内容？

【Key vocabulary】

Senate n. 参议院

Senator n. 参议院

Contention n. 争辩

Astonish v. 使…..惊讶

Fraction n. 小部分

Full Transcript

The federal Government has announced changes to how the Senate is elected. Right now it says some senators are able to be elected with very few people actually voting for them. But the move has upset some smaller political parties who say the changes will leave them out of contention.

Sometimes making choices can be difficult. And some can be a lot more difficult than that, like deciding who the leaders of our country should be.

It’s a choice Aussies have to make at election time. And as well as helping decide the government, we also have to elect the Senate. But now, the Prime Minister wants to make some changes to how the Senate is elected. He says voters aren’t really getting their say because the most popular candidates aren’t always voted in.

MALCOLM TURNBULL, PRIME MINISTER: Australians were astonished to see people elected to the Senate whose primary votes were a fraction in the case of one senator from Victoria, about half of 1% of the vote.

But how could that happen? See, at the moment, people get to order their favourite senate candidates from one, to, well, however long it takes to get to get to the end. Anyway, the list of senate candidates can be massive, more than a hundred. Most people don’t want to fill out all those numbers, so instead they can just vote for their number one and let that candidate decide what order the rest of their preferences should go in. That’s known as a group voting ticket.

The thing is, sometimes, group voting tickets can lead to some surprising candidates winning a seat!

MATT: I’m Mattman.

MATT: What are you doing here? I didn’t vote for you.

MATT: I’m Mattman. Senator Mattman.

See, lots of smaller political parties often make “preference deals”. That’s when one small party agrees to preference another small party, even if they don’t really agree with them on much, just to increase their chances of getting elected.

That’s what many people think happened in the last federal election. Ricky Muir from the Motoring Enthusiasts Party was elected with just 0.51 per cent of the vote, even though nine other parties got more votes than him. Like the Palmer United Party, which got nearly eight times more votes, but still didn’t get elected. Because of the way senate preferences work, and the deals made behind the scenes, Ricky got the gig.

MALCOLM TURNBULL: The system has been taken advantage of.

To make sure that doesn’t happen again, and this doesn’t happen again.

MATT: I’m Mattman

MATT: Why do you keep saying that?

The government’s planning to get rid of group voting tickets. So if you only vote for one candidate that’s your entire vote. You won’t accidentally end up with Mattman. Or if you want to order your favourites, the new ballot will let you vote for up to six candidates without having to order all of them. The government says this way it gives a much more accurate picture of who voters want to represent them.

But some people have spoken out against the changes. They say a system like this will make it much harder for people from small parties to ever be elected. And that means fewer people with different opinions representing different types of people in parliament. If the senate voting changes go ahead, it could make a huge difference come election time.

But either way, we probably won’t be seeing any more of this particular candidate.

MATT: I’m Mattman.

(source: http://www.abc.net.au/btn/story/s4412833.htm)