Customer?

In today's SMH there's a column by Anne Summers in which she quite rightly gets annoyed with the use of the word 'customer' when it's not really the right word - airlines call us 'customers' instead of passengers, that sort of thing. She goes on: "But the most egregious example of this came when I contacted the Australian Electoral Commission, and a recorded message advised "customers" what to do.".

Why exactly is this so bad? She says because "I am a voter, an elector, a citizen but I am not a customer when it comes to exercising my democratic right." That's true, and it's bad enough. But it's worse! In Australia, voting isn't a choice. It's not a right; it's an obligation enforeable by law. Even on an airline a passenger is still a customer in the sense that he can choose to travel on a different carrier next time, or to not travel at all. We have no such latitude with the AEC. I know I've whinged about this before, bear with me.

(For the sake of clarity: this is most certainly not a whinge about Anne Summers.)


Compulsory Voting <--- what the AEC says. Some interesting court judgements too.