Federal election 2022: Hope, despair as Canberrans cast votes

Three years of pub talk and dinner table dispute give way to actual voting. Instead of citizens being talked to (or at), they (we) get to tell politicians what's what - and which of them should keep a job and which of them should take the bus home.

It should be said that some cynicism remains among the unscientifically selected sample The Canberra Times chose. "Drab" was one verdict on the campaigns. Voting was a "chore", another said.

But that was not typical. Many voters felt a strong sense of empowerment.

"I've been totally inspired by it," Verner Verass said as he sat with a muffin and coffee near the long line of voters outside the Woden polling station.

"There's finally a chance to call upon the inherent decency and sense of fairness of Australians," he said.

There was a lack of cynicism about the election from another passer-by at the Woden shopping centre. "It gives people a sense of freedom. They see that our government is working well," Michaela Draca said.

That was not the opinion of coffee shop owner Janette Spaven at the Piccolo Mondo around the corner, at the bus interchange.

"They are full of crap," she said of politicians.

"They promise everything and deliver nothing."

Her coffee shop has been badly hit by the decision of many public servants to work from home.

"There's no traffic flow," she said.

"There's a massive public service building behind us but they aren't working there."

She was particularly annoyed at the Pocock campaign which she said had placed a sign in front of her cafe's sign, obscuring it from potential customers.

Some were less than enthusiastic about voting.

"It's a chore, really," tradie Josh Goddard said.

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"You have to queue. I don't like many of the options. I'd rather spend the day doing more constructive things."

But, he added: "We should vote. And I will."

Sometimes it's the people with experience of other countries who are most enthusiastic about Australian democracy, even those people who can't vote. To paraphrase loosely: some Australians don't know how fortunate they are.

Engineering student Dhuwal Petol from Gujarat in India said back home there was a suspicion politicians could steal an election by manipulating electronic voting.

That was not true here, he said. "I like the Australian system very much," he said as he delivered parcels in Woden to pay for his studies.

Even those who were less enthusiastic conceded the election was important.

"The politicians are like a mixed bag of muppets," Kieran Klein said.

He found the election campaigns "really silly" but conceded the election was "important".

"The direction of where we are going is important, especially climate change, gender relations, the environment - they're all important," he said.

Muso Ashton Rowse was voting Labor but was struggling to convince his mates who were unenthused by politicians of all stripe. "If I can get the ones who don't care to vote my way, that's progress," he said.

Perhaps the strongest testimony to a belief in Australian democracy was the long line of people waiting to vote.

It wound around Woden Town Square, citizens standing in the chill patiently waiting to voice their decisive views.

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