Just 24 hours after Scott Morrison asked the governor-general to call the federal election, we’ve already had opening pitches, gaffes and a shock cabinet announcement. But are Australians paying attention yet? It seems not, according to a handful of different digital metrics.
The calling of the election is when politics kicks up a gear (noting that politicians live in a never-ending campaign just with various duties to balance). It’s the beginning of festivities for political pundits, journalists and nerds who get to sink their teeth into “optics”, “swing seats” and “margins of error”. For those desperate for a change of government or to cling to the stability of reelecting the existing lot, it’s finally getting a date for the electoral showdown.
Those groups of people do not represent the majority of Australians. That much is obvious from the signals of election interest available online. By Monday morning, about the same number of Australians had searched Google about elections as they had for relatively run-of-the-mill AFL and NFL matches — or for British racing champion Lewis Hamilton after he placed fourth at the Australian Grand Prix.
Over on TikTok, hashtags like #Eastershow, pop rap star Jack Harlow’s new song #FirstClass, and #Sonic for the new Sonic the Hedgehog movie all trended in Australia, according to data from TikTok’s Creative Centre Trend Discovery. Meanwhile, hashtags like #election, #auspol, #scomo and #albo were so small they didn’t even register.
(Election-related content did trend on Twitter — but Twitter is primarily used by a smaller, highly engaged group of Australians who may not be representative of the electorate’s interest with news and politics).
This lacklustre interest is to be expected. During the 2019 election, Google searches remained flat after the election was called, only to spike in the last days before the election. People start searching and posting about the election en masse in the dying days of the election campaign, taking stock only after politicians have made their full case.
Of course, that doesn’t mean the early election campaign doesn’t matter. Politics is still mediated through the media, and they — we! — are looking to see what parties have to say about their track record and future. Politicians are doing groundwork and meeting voters around the country. But when it comes to the tides of public interest, this wave has a long way to go before it starts to crest.
