The Salvation Army in Australia has published some Federal Election Statements... these have been given to all the parties and government reps in the nation to let them know what we think are the keys to good governing in the future... all six recommendations are for the 'poor and marginalized' who often get left out at election time. CHECK THEM OUT AT JUSTSALVOS.COM (or your local Corps in AUS).

To accompany that effort - discussion guides have gone to every SA Corps and Centre in the nation to help Salvos critically think through why and how they vote.
How often do people vote for themselves... our hope is that by helping inform Salvos of the social imbalance in Australia (1 in 10 live below the poverty line) they will rise up to consider the plight of others and not just their own tax breaks this year.

Here's another guide that can help aid your voting:

With four weeks to go until the federal election, the ACL today launched a website that will inform hundreds of thousands of Christians throughout Australia – including many in marginal seats – about the different political party standpoints on key issues you care about.

The parties have taken a lot of time to answer our questions carefully and specifically in the midst of a very busy election campaign. Unfortunately, the Greens declined to respond to the questions.

The website www.australiavotes.org provides the responses of six political parties, including the Coalition and Labor, to 25 questions of interest to Christians ranging from homelessness and refugees to family life and abortion. All responses are in the parties' own words, without any comment or alteration by ACL.

The website includes:

responses from the parties to ACL's questions on key topic areas;
information on how MPs and Senators voted in the two recent conscience votes on the abortion drug RU486 and on cloning;
an election resources page where you can download DVDs explaining the voting system, watch the 'Make it Count' webcast speeches by the PM and Opposition Leader, and visit other sites offering comment on this election;
details of our upcoming Meet Your Candidates Forums, which will be added to the website as they are finalised. Please keep checking the site over the coming weeks.

We hope this site will assist you personally, but we also encourage you to pass the link on to all your friends and, importantly, to ask your church leader to send it out on your church email list.

We have provided a powerpoint slide promoting the site which your church might wish to consider showing on Sunday. You can assure your church leaders that www.australiavotes.org is completely non party partisan and is a valuable service that the church can make others aware of as Christians consider their vote at this important time.

Please visit the site and recommend it to your friends and to your church.