Donkey voting in protest of the current political climate is like being handed a megaphone and using it to whine about how nobody can hear you.

Informal votes in the last federal election made up 5.92% of ballot papers (http://past.electionwatch.edu.au/australia-2013/analysis/informal-voting-rise). When you consider the current two party preferred polls are showing 50-50 or 51-49 either way, those votes could change the outcome of the election.

If you don't believe the major parties are looking after your interests the best thing you can to change this is preference minor parties and/or independents.

We have preferential voting in Australia, voting for a candidate who "will never win anyway" is NOT "wasting your vote". If they do not win a seat, your vote will flow to the next highest preference, and you have still increased the chance that they will receive AEC funding for their next campaign.

Voting for minor parties and independents also shows major parties that you believe they are out of touch with you. Major parties who receive preference flow from minor parties and independents often decide to align their views with those minor parties and independents in order to appeal more to those voters next time around. A concrete example of this is the Labor party aligning its policies more closely with those of The Greens following the 2007 election, owing to the rise in popularity of The Greens and the fact that many Greens voters directed their preferences to Labor.

The only thing donkey voting gives you is the ability to brag to your friends about how much of a carefree rebel you are. Donkey voting carries much the same sentiment as becoming an emo in high school in a misguided attempt to be one of the cool kids. All you're really doing by voting informally is throwing away your chance to decide who will make decisions that affect your life for the next three years.

If you're finding yourself overwhelmed by choice, here's what I did: I made a table with each row being one of ten issues I thought most important to me. Then each column represented a party/candidate. I went to the websites for each candidate and ctrl+f'd for the ten issues. I then gave each candidate a score out of ten for each issue, and a zero if they didn't mention it. Then I just tallied the columns and used this to form my preference list, tiebreaking using my best judgement. It only took me half an hour. Half an hour to ensure my vote goes to the people who would best represent my interests on a federal level for the next three years.