Will Australian elections be the same after last Saturday’s upset? As Christopher Warren pointed out yesterday, it was a new breed of election — one apparently decided by social media. Readers agreed that we were treading new territory. Elsewhere, readers weighed in on Victoria’s public housing crisis and tried to decipher the new Minister for Superannuation Jane Hume’s plans for industry superannuation funds.
On the social media election
Paul Trunoff writes: The loss of reputation of mainstream media has devalued the degree to which people accept or even read their articles/opinion pieces. Marketing has known for a long time that information from trusted individuals such as family and friends carries a lot more weight than from more remote or anonymous sources. The only answer as in all information is to think critically. It is perhaps interesting that the traditional polling organisations misread the election result so badly whereas Bela Stantic at the Big Data and Smart Analytics lab at Griffith University correctly predicted a coalition victory based on an analysis of tweets related to relevant policy matters.
On Victoria’s public housing
Karen Churchill writes: This is an outrageous and shameful situation from a moral perspective. From an economic point of view it’s also ridiculously short sighted. The Andrews government is conducting a royal commission into mental health while ignoring the social housing crisis. There is ample research demonstrating that having a stable, affordable home is a precursor to people being able to improve their mental health. It’s clear that investing in social housing is key to getting the best ROI for government investment in mental health services (inadequate though this investment is at the moment). The moral imperative should be obvious to all. The Victorian government needs to really get on to this — fast!
On the Coalition’s industry super plans
Chris Gulland writes: On the face of it, competition is a good thing, and maybe the financial services industry will need to lift their game. The Liberals will have to tread very carefully, as there were far more skeletons in the closet with the banking royal commission than there was with the union royal commission. Speaking of both will we ever see any convictions?
Send your comments, corrections, clarifications and cock-ups to boss@crikey.com.au. We reserve the right to edit comments for length and clarity. Please include your full name if you would like to be considered for publication
Crikey is committed to hosting lively discussions. Help us keep the conversation useful, interesting and welcoming. We aim to publish comments quickly in the interest of promoting robust conversation, but we’re a small team and we deploy filters to protect against legal risk. Occasionally your comment may be held up while we review, but we’re working as fast as we can to keep the conversation rolling.
The Crikey comment section is members-only content. Please subscribe to leave a comment.
The Crikey comment section is members-only content. Please login to leave a comment.