Isentia Index: dairy crisis and tomato sledges bring Barnaby to the fore

As this election campaign continues to have a lack of big ticket issues grabbing anyone’s imagination, the combination of a troubled Hollywood star’s grumpy sledge and a crisis in the dairy industry brought Deputy PM Barnaby Joyce roaring up the list to third, and a long way ahead of anyone apart from the leaders. Meanwhile the leaders are neck and neck, both in the professional media and comment platforms, although still with lower volumes than you would expect to see in the middle of a campaign, following perhaps the blandest election debate ever seen (or not seen).

The controversy surrounding the Aurukun school in far north Queensland pushed Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk into the top ten as she visited the community after her government shut the school down for security reasons. The bleaching crisis on the Great Barrier Reef pushed Environment Minister Greg Hunt up to a fairly rare visit to this list (well, why would the Environment Minister regularly be in this list, right? It’s not like there’s anything disturbing going on … ) and Senator Jacqui Lambie got herself back in the top 20 for being her usual forthright self, this time in relation to Liberal Senator Cory Bernardi.

And just to clear up a misconception that is doing the rounds today, superannuation has not been the biggest issue on talkback through this campaign, it’s never been higher than about third, and mostly coming from one particular station in Sydney, but it has been unfavourable for the government and one of the very few favourable issues for Bill Shorten. So there you go.

Crikey Political Index: May 26 – Jun 1

Barnaby Joyce takes over Immigration Minister Peter Dutton’s spot behind the leaders on social this week, with the Great Barrier Reef and climate change in general at least getting more coverage across social media than most other forms.

Social Media Top Five

Talkback volumes are still pretty low, but the dairy industry crisis was widely discussed, particularly on regional stations.

Talkback Top Five

And yet another male Hollywood superstar starting to look like he has very claylike pedal extremities.

Comparison of media mentions