What stands out when looking at the internet presences of Australian politicians is that the system for getting them online is a complete mess.
Individual websites range in quality from passable to truly awful. Many MPs and Senators don’t have a site of their own, instead having cobbled-together pages featuring simple biographies and bad photos on their party site. Others, meanwhile, have all-singing, all-dancing multimedia experiences.
The kaleidoscopic variety of websites shows most MPs’ sites have been developed for them on a case-by-case basis. It must be costing taxpayers a small fortune.
Surely there is some way of offering a central service out of Parliament House that allows MPs to pick and choose what features they want on their websites and then put it all together for them.
(Full lists: House of Representatives | Senate )
There are also no standard ways of finding your representatives. Website addresses vary wildly: Browyn Bishop is at Bronwyn.com.au, Bruce Scott has named his site after his electorate, at Maranoa.info, while Nicola Roxon is at nicolaroxonmp.com. Some of the sites don’t rate all that well in a Google search so you may not find them if you’re searching for your MP by name.
There are similiar variations in content. Some websites, like those of Chris Bowen, Kate Ellis, or Scott Morrison are bubbling with news feeds, video and pictures, and infused with something at least resembling personality. Or there’s the impossibly dour SimonCrean.net, announcing that the minister works with Kevin Rudd and Labor to do things followed by a list of headlines about sods being turned and trees being planted.
With the election approaching we’ve built some lists housing the web presences of serving politicians. In a separate post we’ve started a list of the politicians who are worth following because they are active and a bit interesting.
But not all MPs need a big web presence. There’s no rule that says they need one, nor do they have to dive into social media and start tweeting and providing status updates on every pothole they fill. Take the senior Liberal Senator, George Brandis, whose web profile is limited to some generic biographical information on party websites. Yet he retains reasonably high profile and influence.
Some people simply aren’t that good at using sites like Twitter and Facebook to reach people, so for some it will be time wasted that could be doing something useful like working on party policy. Or planting trees.
But some members of the Australian Parliament are practically invisible, and this is particularly the case among Senators such as David Feeney, Alan Ferguson, Jacinta Collins and Annette Hurley. Most politicians use the web with varying levels of grace to at least promote their local or national activity. When someone has no discernible presence it does make you wonder what they’re working on.
One aspect of the social media presences is a tendency among even the most active politicians to avoid connecting with people from the other side. MPs should get over this. A Facebook update that “Tony Abbott is now friends with Peter Garrett” would sure spark a bit of fun but if everyone does it it’ll blow over in days and the political tectonics won’t have budged an inch.
Besides, keeping a close eye on your opponents’ Facebook and Twitter profiles could provide some useful intelligence or occasional excellent Parliamentary sledging material.
(Admittedly Facebook doesn’t make it easy by forcing you to hit the “Like” button on a politician’s page. A “Follow” button would help.)
There are several hundred links in the various lists so there are bound to be some omissions, glitches, and holes in the data. Email feedback(at)thepunch.com.au with updates, suggestions, or corrections.
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