Are our Federal politicians 'connected' enough online?

In my copious spare time, I've been pulling together a list of social media channels used by our Federal politicians.

The question I wanted to answer was "Are our Federal politicians using social media effectively to connect with their constituents?", particularly given the level of activity by government agencies, lobby groups and media online.

Surprisingly it wasn't easy to find a comprehensive list of social media accounts operated by Federal politicians. Both the Liberal party and ALP websites were very inaccurate (20-30% incorrect) as well as hard to search - which surprised me considering the electoral value of making it easy for citizens to connect to their local member. It also surprised me that individual MPs were not checking that their information remained accurate in these sites.

Independent services such as MyPolitician, TweetMP and MPTweets were also inaccurate (10-20% incorrect) although they remain fantastic statistical services. Considering these are labours of love I can appreciate the struggle to maintain the currency of information. (However if I were a member of parliament I'd ensure my details were submitted to these and other directories when I first joined each social media network.)

The APH also doesn't provide this information - which isn't really surprising, however they do provide links to websites and email contact forms for members (and fantastic downloadable files which I used for much of the rest of my information). Should social media accounts still be treated differently to email contact information?

Anyway - onto the important bits....

As I've discussed before, my FOI request (which is still in progress) found that about 73% of Australian Government agencies use social media for official purposes. The 2012 Yellow Pages Sensis Social Media report indicated that 62% of Australians use social media - so how did politicians do?

Quite well I am glad to say.

I found that 72.12% of Australian Federal politicians used at least one social media channel, with slightly more of our male politicians (72.67%) than our female (70.77%)  having a social media presence. This is the reverse of the normal statistics for the Australian population, where women are generally more likely to use social media (particularly Facebook) than men.

The Senate did far worse than the House of Representatives, with only 58% of Senators using at least one social media channel, compared to 78% of Reps MPs. I found this quite intriguing given that Senators cover entire states rather than smaller, more easily visitable, electorates. Perhaps it reflects their term length, or a lower level of direct citizen engagement. I can't see a link based on age or gender.

By party, the Greens win on percentages, with 100% of their 10 elected parliamentarians using social media and all of them on Twitter.

The Liberals outpaced the ALP, with 76.60%, or 72 of their 94 elected parliamentarians using some form of social media and 61 on Twitter. The ALP only had 67.65%, or 69 of their 102 elected parliamentarians on social media, with 57 using Twitter.


The Nationals sit on 50%, with six of their 12 elected parliamentarians on social media - and all five on Twitter. Of the eight independents, six use social media (75%), with five of these on Twitter. The two holdouts are Nick Xenophon and Tony Windsor - probably for very different reasons.

Looking at specific social media services, Facebook (133 accounts) and Twitter (132 accounts) dominate with an almost equal number of accounts at about 58% of parliamentarians. This is interesting when you consider that 97% of social media users in Australia are on Facebook, however only 14% use Twitter. In this case I think it can be explained by the theory that Twitter is far more politically influential as it is the haunt of most of Australia's journalists and many influential stakeholders to whom politicians wish to connect.

Female politicians are slightly ahead on Facebook (60% to 58.39% of males) while males lead on Twitter (59.01% to 56.92%). Note that percentages are not absolute, that 60% of females on Facebook represents 39 accounts, whereas the 58.39% of males represents 94 accounts.

Next comes YouTube with 15.49% of parliamentarians having personal accounts (I didn't count party accounts). Here males are well ahead, with 30, or 18.63% of male politicians having accounts compared to only 5, or 7.69% of females.

Flickr follows with 4.42%, or 10, parliamentarians, and bringing up the rear was MySpace - where I could only find 2 politicians still claiming to use the service.

As you'd expect from the Senate vs House of Representatives comparison above, Senators were far less likely to use all of the services. Facebook was used by only 39.47% (30) of Senators compared to 68.67% (103) MPs and Twitter was only used by 50% (38) of Senators, compared to 62.67% (94) MPs.

The type of electorate was a factor as well. Unsurprisingly 85.37% of MPs in Inner Metropolitan seats used a social media channel, compared to 78.72% of those in Outer Metropolitan and 69.05% in Rural seats. Provincial seats, however, bucked the trend, with a 85% usage rate. For an explanation of these terms refer to the bottom of the AEC's party codes page.

Overall I think our Federal politicians have done a decent job of establishing social media channels - although Senators have some way until they catch up with the lower house.

Finally, I am very surprised that Australia's Minister for Broadband, Communication and the Digital Economy (Senator Stephen Conroy) appears to not use social media at all, doesn't have a personal website, and even the link to his Parliamentary website is broken.


The way in which our politicians are using social media channels is a post for another occasion, requiring far more analysis over time.

In case you want to see for yourself what our politicians are saying online, I've established a Twitter account to follow all Federal politicians and created listed based on their house and party affiliations. You can view these as follows:

• Latest 100 tweets from Australian Federal politicians: http://twit100.com/egovaupollies

• Federal politicians: twitter.com/#!/eGovAUPollies/federal-politicians
• Federal MPs: twitter.com/#!/eGovAUPollies/federal-house-of-reps
• Federal Senators: twitter.com/#!/eGovAUPollies/federal-senators
• Federal Labor members: twitter.com/#!/eGovAUPollies/federal-alp-pollies
• Federal Liberal members: twitter.com/#!/eGovAUPollies/federal-liberal-pollies
• Federal Greens members: twitter.com/#!/eGovAUPollies/federal-greens
• Federal National members: twitter.com/#!/eGovAUPollies/federal-nationals
• Federal Independents: twitter.com/#!/eGovAUPollies/federal-independents

A final caveat - people join and leave social media networks all the time, so these figures are 'point in time'.  Also, although I did spend a lot of time searching for social media services used by politicians, I might have missed some, so the figures are representative, but unlikely to be 100% accurate.

Note that as I did spend more time looking than a regular citizen would, I'm not prepared to take all the blame for not finding a politician's Facebook page when they've hidden it from sight really well (or locked their Twitter account as several politicians appear to have done). Politicians who want to engage online need to make these channels very easy to find - as should their parties.

All the information I've collected, and the statistics generated, are embedded below. If you see anything that is incomplete and want to help populate the spreadsheet, drop me a line via email or my @craigthomler Twitter account. I'll even populate it for you if you add comments with the missing information.

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The media140 #OzPolitics Tweetbook

I felt that it would be useful to compile the online discussions during media140 #OzPolitics into a single work, a permanent record that could be reread, referenced and reconsidered.

So over the long weekend, with assistance from PeopleBrowsr, the support of Julie Posetti and permission from FirstDogOnMoon and Mike Stuchbery to reuse some of their material, I compiled the following Tweetbook.

You are welcome to read, print, share and comment.

media140 #OzPolitics Tweetbook

By the way - as far as I know this is the first conference Tweetbook created in Australia. It is based on the very useful Open Government and Innovations Conference Tweetbook from their conference in Washington in July 2009.

I hope the media140 #OzPolitics Tweetbook will also serve as an inspirational model for future Australian conferences and events.

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In the noise of #Groggate, don't forget those silenced

I've been tracking the discussion on the outing of Greg Jericho as author of the Grog's Gamut blog by The Australian journalist James Massola.

In the last seven days there have been over 100 posts, articles and interviews and nearly 2,000 tweets on the topic - discussing freedom of speech, anonymity, media power and public interest.

Few have mentioned one of the first claims made by The Australian;

"The prolific blogger shows a strong preference for the ALP, despite the Public Service code of conduct stating that "the APS is apolitical, performing its functions in an impartial and professional manner"."

Grog disputed this in Spartacus no more, his final post last Monday before falling silent.

Whether Grog's voice remains silent is up to him and his employer - his Department and behind that the Australian Public Service. It is not up to the media or bloggers.

Across the world many talented public servants operate blogs. There are firm roots in other western democracies such as Britain, Canada, the US and even New Zealand.


Groggate is a challenge not only to broad freedom of speech in Australia - potentially silencing anyone who believes their employers may have concerns over their words - but also challenges the public service to reconsider what Australian public servants may and may not do.

There are hundreds of thousands of intelligent and educated professionals who choose to work for Commonwealth, State and local governments across Australia. They serve the governments of the day diligently, as mature adults most are fully capable of separating their work performance from their personal views (and they all vote).

How many of these intelligent and potentially influential voices will now choose to remain silent rather than face the scrutiny - both public and internal - that Grog is facing?

If Grog continues writing, it will be at the permission of his employer, potentially under greater internal and external scrutiny.

If he stops writing - due to personal reasons or the level of controversy - a thousand other public servants may not develop the courage to start.


How much public sector experience and diversity has been lost to our public debates due to Grog's outing?

We'll never know.

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Will social media only come into its own in government when budgets run out?

The US Ambassador Jeffrey Bleich spoke this morning at Media140 #Ozpolitics on why President Obama used social media in such an innovative way during his election campaign.

Bleich said that it wasn't because President Obama particularly believed that social media was taking over from traditional media and it wasn't because his campaign team felt it would differentiate them from other Democratic candidates.

It was because they didn't have any choice.

Back in 2006 while Obama had enormous appeal as a Senator he didn't have the basics to win an election. No money, endorsements, name recognition or consultants.

He was running against Senator Hilary Clinton - who had been a household name for two decades, had a good funding machine, had locked up most of the big endorsements and had good consultants.

The core group of 'true believers' supporting Obama may have been passionate, committed and hardworking but they were underdogs. And, Bleich says, while Americans (and Australians) love an underdog, they normally stay under.

To compensate for the lack of supporters ready to contribute million-dollar donations, President Obama's team had to build campaign funds from grassroots supporters, at an average of $60 at a time.

To replace a lack of endorsements from national political leaders, Obama's team had to seek endorsements at a local level, from individual town leaders across the United States.

He had to get his name into widespread public use and he had to get advisors who could use special tools to catch up with Senator Clinton's advantages.

We all know the outcome. President Obama raised over US$500 million via small donations, built huge brand recognition across the United States and created a network of over 6.4 million engaged voters, who organised and influenced locally.

Ambassador Bleich says that social media shouldn't be thought of as creating a new way of communicating. It gives political leaders the capability to communicate with people in the same way they communicate in person.

He says that social media will replace traditional media where it is superior. It won't replace TV or other channels that are good at particular things that social media is not.

Bleich also said that shifting from campaign to governance has also posed an issue for social media use. The conversation is no longer with campaign supporters - a smaller and more supportive group. It is now with a nation, more people, more views and less support.

This view was reflected by Senator Christine Milne of the Greens during her comments on the panel 'How are real time and social media platforms changing political communication'. She said that MPs have a job to do - reading, discussing, meeting and voting. The time they can spend engaging and building relationships via social media channels is limited.

This raises an issue of authenticity. Milne says that even if MPs can spend time in social media building a 'celebrity' profile, if they cannot maintain the level of involvement and support it on an ongoing basis by delivering substance, it creates an issue.

Bleich said that Obama's campaign was able to fly under the radar, had no choice to experiment with online engagement. Whereas, Latika Bourke, during the panel discussion, said that during the Australian election most politicians went into hiding as they were afraid of being 'that politician who stuffed up on Twitter'.

So what does this mean for Australian politics and government?

It suggests to me that Australia's current political and government system will continue largely unchanged - on the surface.

While we don't face the same financial and engagement pressures as Obama's campaign there's no pressure forcing our politicians and public servants to engage online.

We're less likely to experiment and innovate while the fear of public failure outweighs the gain that can be achieved.

I realise this all sounds a little depressing for Gov 2.0 advocates - such as myself. However there are signs of hope.

Malcolm Turnbull, who was also on the panel, believes that technology has been a great democratiser - a child can make a movie with a mobile device that used to require a million dollars of equipment.

He says that despite some MPs feeling they face vitriol via social media channels, this isn't more than they previously faced via email, or even face-to-face.

He says that his engagement via Twitter is based on having a little fun, being willing to engage in a less formal way - be a little provocative, throw in some whimsy.

As we're already seeing with the growth of social media use by government there is increasing trust in allowing people to use the channel. As it becomes a normal approach to engagement the fear and scrutiny should diminish to the level appropriate to the medium and the messages.

This is likely to happen more slowly in a climate of 'business as usual' - where budgets exist for traditional media use and agencies and politicians both feel that existing channels meet their communications and engagement needs.

However change will happen. Social media will become a more important part of the mix where it is a superior medium. It just won't see the speed of adoption or innovation we saw during the last US Presidential campaign.

To give the last words to Ambassador Bleich, he said that social media can help spread facts as quickly as fictions. Government and politicians can use it to manage the 24 hour news cycle, mitigating issues by correcting news.

He says that social media, like all media since the printing press, is a two-edged sword - what's most important is that you have a handle on it.

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