Below the Line

Right from the outset, it is clear Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s agenda is very different to his predecessor Scott Morrison’s – from emphasising his commitment to fighting climate change to foreign leaders in Tokyo, to displaying the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags at his Parliament House press conferences. In this final episode of our election podcast Below the Line, our expert panel discusses the possible impacts the election result may have on government policy, from Canberra to the world stage. What can Albanese get done, in concert with the independents, the Greens and other MPs? They’re joined by PhD student Phoebe Hayman from La Trobe University to discuss the teal independents’ campaigns and how they might contribute to the new parliament. They’re also joined by Director of La Trobe Asia Bec Strating to discuss how the Solomon Islands dispute impacted the campaign and what our relationship with China might look like under Foreign Minister Penny Wong. This final episode was recorded live at La Trobe University on May 24, and we have released it in two parts. Listen here to part one, which focuses on the election results and their fallout. This concluding edition looks ahead to the policy issues faced by the new federal parliament. Our panellists also discuss the frontrunner for the Liberal leadership Peter Dutton, whom Simon Jackman believes is more pragmatic than some may think. Host Jon Faine and Andrea Carson speculate as to whether News Corporation will double down on its partisan alignment with the Coalition, or learn from its ultimately unsuccessful attempts to influence the campaign during its coverage. Meanwhile, Anika Guaja wonders whether the teal independents might band together and form a new party ahead of the next federal election in 2025. We also hear from young La Trobe students about their experience of voting for the first time. Finally, a sincere thank you to our regular listeners who have supported Below the Line throughout the election campaign. Our regular panellists are taking a well-earned break, but perhaps you might hear from them again at the next federal election. To become one of more than 190,000 people who get The Conversation’s journalism by experts delivered straight to their inbox, subscribe today. Disclosures: Simon Jackman is a consultant on polling data for the Climate 200 network of independent candidates. Image credit: Lukas Coch/AAP

What do One Nation’s Pauline Hanson and Labor’s Tanya Plibersek have in common? They are both winning the battle for eyeballs on social media, says a top Facebook official. In the final episode before polling day of our election podcast Below the Line, our regular panel talks to Mia Garlick, Facebook’s Director of Policy in Australia and New Zealand, about the ways politicians use the social media platform in election campaigns. Our political scientists quiz Garlick on how transparent the company is about the political advertising it carries and the assistance it provides to big-spending campaigners. Video content is an increasingly important way for politicians to get their messages across to online audiences. Aside from Hanson and Plibersek, Garlick says politicians who are doing video messaging particularly well this election include the Liberal party’s Lucy Wicks and Jason Falinski, and founder of the Reason party Fiona Patten. Andrea Carson says the digital campaign will ramp up once the three-day blackout on broadcast and newspaper political ads comes into effect on Wednesday evening, because online ads are outside the law’s reach. Jon Faine describes the law as “absurd” in the digital age, akin to using Morse Code. Faine also asks the panel why Prime Minister Scott Morrison vowed this week to no longer be “a bulldozer”. “It was a significant shift on Scott Morrison’s part,” says Anika Gauja, in recognition that the public seems to want a more positive campaign than it has been getting. But with more than five million pre-poll and postal votes already cast, according to ABC election analyst Antony Green, has Morrison’s mea culpa come too late? Below the Line is a limited-edition election podcast brought to you by The Conversation and La Trobe University. It is produced by Courtney Carthy and Benjamin Clark. To become one of the thousands of people who help The Conversation produce journalism by experts, make a tax-deductible donation here. Below the Line will broadcast one last episode after the election result next week. If you have a question you would like the panel to answer, email us at: belowtheline@theconversation.edu.au Disclosures: Andrea Carson has received funding for research projects from Facebook. Jon Faine does freelance work for Industry Super Australia, a peak body for industry superannuation funds. Simon Jackman is an unpaid consultant on polling data for the Climate 200 network of independent candidates. Image credit: James Ross/AAP

Channel Nine’s leaders’ debate on Sunday night may have been a “shouty, unedifying spectacle”, but Scott Morrison and Anthony Albanese will do it all again on Wednesday evening on Channel Seven. Why? In the latest episode of our election podcast Below the Line, our panel of experts explain that our political leaders are under pressure to persuade voters as quickly as possible, given early voting centres have now opened and Australians can cast their ballots. But what policies aren’t being talked about on the debate stages and the campaign trail? Plenty, according to the University of Sydney’s Simon Jackman and Anika Gauja and La Trobe University’s Andrea Carson. Below the Line’s usual host Jon Faine is away for this episode, but will return later in the week. Anika identifies migration and the casualisation of work as two key issues the major parties have largely steered clear of in the campaign so far. Simon is dumbfounded by how quickly politicians and the media have dropped the topic of COVID, given how many Australians have died with the disease in 2022. Meanwhile, Andrea wonders why renters can barely get a look in amid all the discussion of first-homebuyer schemes. Finally, the panel discusses preference deals and whether they could lead to candidates being elected to the lower house despite having relatively few first preferences themselves. Below the Line is a limited-edition election podcast brought to you by The Conversation and La Trobe University. The show is produced by Courtney Carthy and Benjamin Clark. To become one of the thousands of people who help The Conversation produce journalism by experts, make a tax-deductible donation here. Image credit: Alex Ellinghausen/AAP Audio credit: Channel Nine/60 Minutes Disclosure: Simon Jackman is an unpaid consultant on polling data for the Climate 200 network of independent candidates.

Is there any such thing as the so-called “ethnic vote” in a country as multicultural as Australia? Do different cultural groups favour one side of politics over another? For instance, in Victoria’s most marginal seat of Chisholm, will the Hong Kong-born Liberal MP Gladys Liu be advantaged by the Chinese diaspora living in her electorate? In the latest episode of Below the Line, hosted by award-winning broadcaster Jon Faine, we talk to Chinese media expert Wilfred Wang from the University of Melbourne to understand why there are no easy answers to these questions. Andrea Carson asks if a negative Labor ad circulating online about Liu’s connections to China – which Prime Minister Scott Morrison called “sewer tactics” – will harm her electoral prospects. “It’s unlikely,” Dr Wang explains, because Chinese Australians do not vote uniformly, with their support fragmented across the major parties and the Greens. He also says there is little evidence from 2019 that Liberal election messages on the Chinese online platform WeChat played a big role in Liu’s 2019 electoral success. “WeChat didn’t play such a vital role in shaping Chinese Australians’ votes, even for those voters from mainland China,” says Dr Wang, contradicting some of the party and media speculation at the time. To read Dr Wang’s forthcoming article on misinformation targeting migrant communities, which is mentioned in the program, visit his author profile early next week or subscribe to our daily newsletter to be alerted as soon as it goes live. As Simon Jackman notes, the top 10 seats with the highest proportions of non-English speakers are in Melbourne and Sydney, and he reminds us that more research needs to be done to understand these ethnic voting patterns. Anika Gauja says this is further complicated by shifts in immigration demographics, with a big influx of Indian migrants in the past decade, which both sides of politics are trying to capitalise on. Meanwhile, Anthony Albanese has returned to the campaign trail after a week in isolation with COVID-19 – but how much of a difference did his physical absence make to communication Labor’s messages to voters? Less than the Coalition would have liked, conclude our expert panel. Finally, Jon asks why Scott Morrison and his team have already said “yes” to a second leaders debate on May 8 (Mother’s Day) with Channel Nine, but Labor is yet to commit? What does this tell us about how the Liberal party might see its own electoral prospects? Below the Line is a limited-edition election podcast brought to you by The Conversation and La Trobe University. Image credit: James Ross/AAP Disclosure: Simon Jackman is an unpaid consultant on polling data for the Climate 200 network of independent candidates.

AAP ImageWhen tennis superstar Dylan Alcott’s post rebuking the Prime Minister for his clumsy “blessed” comment is outperforming election news stories on social media, you know the leaders’ debate didn’t go as hoped for the Coalition. Scott Morrison effectively lost a day of campaigning on Thursday, which he largely spent apologising to disability groups and families who were offended when he said he was “blessed” to have children without disability during Wednesday night’s leaders’ debate. Alcott posted, “Woke up this morning feeling very blessed to be disabled – I reckon my parents are pretty happy about it too.” In this episode of Below the Line, host Jon Faine explores the political fallout from the debate and some policy highlights. Our expert panel consider what impact catching COVID and spending a week in isolation will have on Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese’s campaign. Anika Gauja says the virtual campaign will take off and it’s a good opportunity to hear more from Labor’s shadow ministers. But why have we not seen more ministers and their political counterparts debating policies in the media, asks Faine? Do voters benefit from the media’s focus on the leaders, personalities and polls? Andrea Carson says The Conversation’s #SetTheAgenda survey is a good example of putting voters ahead of the interests of media proprietors and getting away from “horse race” coverage. Finally, listen to what we make of the Solomon Islands’ security pact with China. Simon Jackman says it’s a major setback for the Coalition’s election campaign and not in Australia’s foreign policy interests. Below the Line is brought to you twice a week by The Conversation with La Trobe University. Image: Toby Zerna/AAP

George Christensen, the maverick Liberal-National Party member from far north Queensland, dropped the pre-Easter bombshell that he is no longer heading for retirement but joining One Nation. Today, the Below the Line podcast team unpack what this means for the major parties’ prospects in that seat and for the election result. Joining our host, award-winning broadcaster Jon Faine, is Anika Guaja who says the defection is a big win for One Nation, whose leader Pauline Hanson says they will field candidates in every Australian electorate. Meanwhile, Andrea Carson finds that One Nation is getting more public interactions (likes, shares and comments) on Facebook for political posts than any other party or politician including the Prime Minister Scott Morrison. Carson says this shows One Nation’s mastery in reaching voters with their conversational style of messaging on social media. Facebook data aggregated using CrowdTangle shows Hanson’s dominance on social media. Simon Jackman notes that even before the media publicly shamed Anthony Albanese with front page headlines for failing to recall the unemployment rate on the first day of campaigning, Labor’s vote lead was already narrowing according to different pollsters. With early voting opening on May 9, ahead of polling day on May 21, our panel looks at what this means for media messaging, polls and political strategies. Added to this is the Australian Electoral Commissioner Tom Rogers’ unprecedented announcement that COVID-19 affected voters will be able to lodge their vote by telephone on election day. This has never happened in a federal Australian election before. This raises all sorts of questions about how the vote will be recorded and counted, especially for those of you who choose to vote “below the line” on the Senate ballot. Listen to our expert panel’s latest election insights, and thank you for tuning in and propelling Below the Line into the top 20 Australian news podcasts on Spotify this week after just two episodes. Keep listening, we’ll have more to come right up until election day. Image: Darren England/AAP

From the polls to party spin to election promises, Below the Line is a limited-edition podcast unpacking party lines and policies during the 2022 Australian federal election campaign. Hosting the conversation is award-winning broadcaster and former ABC Melbourne mornings presenter, Jon Faine, now a Vice Chancellor’s Fellow at the University of Melbourne. He’ll be joined by political scientists Anika Gauja and Simon Jackman from the University of Sydney and La Trobe University’s Andrea Carson, to talk about the issues that matter to you. Below the Line is brought to you by The Conversation and La Trobe University twice weekly until polling day. Listen to the first episode, in which our panel discusses personalities and pre-selections, when the election will likely be called, and the most probable election date. Together, our experts outline the issues that are expected to feature prominently during the campaign and the key challenges for the Coalition seeking re-election for a fourth term in government. And tune in to hear why this election campaign is expected to “get dirty”. Produced by Courtney Carthy and Benjamin Clark. Image credit: Sarah Rhodes/AAP