An election like no other

Posted on 10 February, 2016

An election year is always met with an equal measure of excitement and trepidation in our house.

Daddy goes away to war for six weeks trailing around after the Prime Minister usually, criss-crossing the country on planes and buses with a large bag of camera equipment enduring sleep deprivation.

This means, of course, that the cosy notion of keeping the home fires burning with two children is always derailed. Work-life balance is romantic. During an election its more about keeping fuel in the car (teenager driving services) and enough food for the next 24 hours so they don’t perish or complain.

Yes, I know, First World problem but I don’t make a very good single parent, sorry about that and my respect to all single parents. Truly, you’re amazing.

Our children are pretty up on it all and on election night we prep like it’s the Super Bowl. Snacks, drinks, pizza and multiple computers charged up and monitoring the Australian Electoral Commission and the ABC’s oracle Antony Green’s predictions. It’s so much fun and then Daddy returns, usually the following afternoon, exhausted. That’s it for another three years we tell ourselves. We did it.

Most people though aren’t as oddly caught up in it all and in fact many don’t give any thought to who they’ll vote for until it’s too late to be informed. That’s sad because as I say to anyone who bothers to listen that we do live in a democracy and politicians are voted in and out of office. It’s up to us and believe me they do listen.

The major parties are polling every day – they are reading the views of the electorate on everything from major policy changes like the GST and tax reform to the perception of their leaders. They listen to what is said in focus groups and they recycle the good stuff and get the leaders to spruik it.

Sounds sort of simple doesn’t it? But there’s a few things that stand in the way of a properly engaged electorate and strong government.

Connectivity plays havoc with a government’s ability to push through change.

Take the GST. It was floated, social platforms went off, marginal seat MPs ran into hiding, nagged the Prime Minister, polling possibly reflected the white noise and hey presto, they backed down.

Social platforms have totally transformed how we connect with our elected representatives around election time.

We can like and dislike them. We can vote them in and out of our own reality TV show. We can shout at them on Facebook. Copy them into a possibly abusive tweet and expect them to respond. We anticipate that they will do what we ask of them in 140 characters. Popular leaders are more popular. Unpopular ones spiral. It’s not fair but that’s how it is.

This election is all about ‘steady as she can possibly go’ for the Turnbull government and making any headway at all for the Shorten opposition. Some seats will change hands as always but it won’t be close. This time both parties may be offering a reasonably similar set of major policies – with significant philosophical differences and some small policy differences between them. It will, to a large extent, come down to the personal strength of the leaders and engaging with people.

Social media amplifies that engagement. It’s false but it has to be done. Gone are the days where it’s all won with the strength of your shoe leather and the success of your town hall gatherings. So expect to see a reasonably straight forward campaign.

There will be slip ups as there always are but I expect this election to be a little bit more mundane than the last three.

Jo Scard is the Managing Director of Fifty Acres – The Communications Agency and tweets at @scardjo

Image of ‘Australian prime minister…‘ via Shutterstock