When one democracy sausage is never enough. You can share your snag picture with Canteen Watch on X using the hashtags #CanteenWatch and #DemocracySausage. Photo:@CanteenWatchAus.
It’s official – democracy is on the menu come 3 May.
While the rest of the country marks the date on their calendars with words like “vote” or “decide the future”, around here, we all know what 3 May really means: a nationwide excuse to eat a sausage in white bread outside a public school at 9 am without judgement.
OK, maybe just a little judgement.
It’s the one day where it’s perfectly normal to cast a ballot with one hand and hold a snag in the other – where civic duty comes grilled, with optional onion and your choice of sauce. Because in this sunburnt land of ours, we don’t just exercise our democratic rights … we eat them too.
Let’s be honest, we all watched the news footage of PM Anthony Albanese driving to Government House to set the election date. But we didn’t watch it out of excitement at getting a chance to vote for whatever party we would spend the next few years complaining about endlessly.
No, it was to mark on the calendar which day we wouldn’t need breakfast so we could sneak in at least two serves of sausage.
The democracy sausage has become one of the great Australian traditions.
It’s as Australian as having a barbecue on a public holiday, watching the Melbourne Cup (even though you don’t care about horse racing) and clapping your hands when the plane lands.
You’d have to think the United States of America would be in a far better place now if only it had the democracy sausage tradition, right? Though no doubt Trump would pass a bill banning the serving of Mexican sausages.
The democracy sausage is indeed the great Australian equaliser.
In the same line at the same polling booth, you can find trades people, company CEOs, tech moguls, retirees, actual candidates, tired political party staffers and hungover uni students.
It’s not party politics, housing affordability and employment that will dominate our discussion in the lead-up to the election. No.
People aren’t asking, “Who are you voting for?” anymore, they’re asking, “Does the polling booth at Oak Flats serve onion?”.
The great choice facing Australians isn’t actually “Liberal or Labor”, it’s “barbecue or tomato”. The Greens? Well, they’d be mustard. Rarely used and often included as a combination with one of the others.
In a move of marketing genius, MasterFoods has announced it will rename its tomato sauce “Democracy Sauce” in the lead-up to the election.
If the MasterFoods marketers were really on their game, they would have seized a perfect slogan opportunity …
“MasterFood’s Democracy Sauce: now brought to you in bright red just like Antony Green’s electoral map last election night.”
There are now even polling booths trying to up the ante on the democracy sausage by offering bacon and egg rolls as an alternative. Sacrilege. It’s barbecuing’s version of polling day pork-barrelling.
Wollongong Lord Mayor Tania Brown indulges in the fine wares on offer in Keiraville during last year’s local government elections. Photo: Supplied.
Here’s a message to service clubs, charities and community groups of the Illawarra: We don’t want fancy alternatives.
We definitely do not want gluten-free buns and we definitely do not want chorizo or lamb and rosemary versions, most likely to be found in ballot boxes near Thirroul.
Just give us a plain ol’ supermarket bought snag, some overcooked onions, starchy white bread and a tiny, oil-soaked serviette which offers little protection to the sauce that will soon reside on the front of our shirt.
And yes, it is unfortunate, that the day of the democracy sausage must have one loser.
That person will be in a lonely, lonely place, shunned by those they once considered friends, family and close allies.
Not the losing prime ministerial candidate. No, I’m talking about the Australian Electoral Commission officer assigned to a polling booth without a sausage sizzle. The modern-day variant of solitary confinement.
And if you need further proof of the power of the sausage you need only watch social media on the day.
This author can guarantee you one thing categorically. If it was a horse race, the bookies would make this not-so-bold prediction a $1.01 favourite.
Rest assured the hashtag dominating social media platforms on election day will be #democracysausage as Australians of all varieties, shapes and sizes Instagram the crap out of their snag like they are about to dine on a Michelin-starred meal under the shadow of the Eiffel Tower.
In fact, how about this suggestion to save on taxpayer resources?
Rather than pay some poor sod valuable tax dollars to sit there with a ruler, pencil and an electoral roll to mark off whether you’ve voted or not, how about we create an AI script which records whether you posted your sausage on socials or not? Didn’t post? Clearly didn’t vote. Genius.
So, this 3 May, ensure you are up early and follow the aroma wafting through your suburb leading you to your local polling booth.
Grab your well-cooked meat mystery bag, onion, bread and condiment of choice and enjoy every oily morsel because as every Australian knows, it will be the only good thing to come out of the day anyway.
Vote early, snag often.
Want to know which polling booth near you has a sausage sizzle or cake stall on election day? Visit the Democracy Sausage website to find out.
