Anthony Albanese officially kicked off the election campaign last week. With the firing of the starter’s gun, we can expect a spamming of political advertising across TV, search engines, social media — and directly into your email inbox.
Yes, the humble email newsletter is still considered one of the best ways to talk directly to voters. And so this election, Crikey is teaming up with researchers from the Australian Catholic University and the Australian National University for a new series, Yes We Spam, which will attentively digest what parliamentarians are emailing constituents. What are they campaigning about? What are they promising their constituents? What misinformation or disinformation are they peddling? And most importantly, who’s the worst at using Photoshop?
Why newsletters?
During most election campaigns, the mainstream media naturally focuses on the national campaign. But the local campaign is often crucial: more than 10% of Australian voters say “their local candidates” are the most important factor in deciding how to vote. This creates clear incentives for every MP to get out into the community in as many different ways as possible.
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Each candidate hopes that one extra street stall, one extra door knocked on, or one extra e-newsletter might be the one thing tipping over those last few undecided voters. This “below the line” campaigning is often difficult to see and usually ignored by the media unless a candidate self-immolates, like Mal Meninga, or there are some “colourful” contenders — like those One Nation throws up.
People are rightly sceptical of politicians’ motivations, but it’s worth remembering the considerable time they spend working outside of Parliament, the hours they spend assisting individuals in their electorates, listening to local community groups and generally “getting out and about”. This work isn’t usually covered by traditional media, so political figures are increasingly turning to social media and newsletters for coverage.
These newsletters illuminate how politicians think they can best build meaningful connections with the public, and indicate what they think represents the interests of their potential voters. Many politicians send out physical newsletters monthly or quarterly, with e-newsletters being a quick and affordable supplement to reach interested audiences and show their connection-building activities.
By looking closely at these communications, we can understand how MPs conceptualise their job and how they think they can best bridge the gap between parties, parliaments and the people.
What does this spam look like?
We’ve been collecting these e-newsletters since mid-March 2024 and now have more than 1,270 in our database. In that time, around 80 MPs sent at least one e-newsletter. Across the major parties, approximately a third of MPs send e-newsletters. Most of these politicians send approximately one per month, however, some Liberal MPs and senators are significantly more prolific.
The gold spam medal goes to Henry Pike, Liberal MP for Bowman, who sent 88 newsletters over the past year. That’s approximately three every fortnight! ALP MP for Hunter Dan Repacholi came in second with 70, and Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price came in third with 63.
The contents of the e-newsletters reveal a lot about how MPs view their jobs and the connections they aim to build. MPs such as Melissa Price (Liberal MP for Durack in WA) seek to portray themselves as members of their community, with their main photo carefully staged to portray themselves as “one of the people”.
These e-newsletters often focus on local community events. Matt Thistlethwaite (ALP, Kingsford Smith, NSW) has used his to promote his annual “Welcoming the Babies morning tea” celebrating new births in the community, while Phillip Thompson (Liberal, Herbert, QLD) highlighted a range of local grants that were available for volunteer, sporting and veterans organisations, and offered to “provide assistance and a letter of support for your application”.
Other politicians seek instead to promote their parliamentary work or focus on their chosen policy priority. For example, most of Claire Chandler’s (Liberal, Senator for Tasmania) e-newsletters have discussed her advocacy for the “rights of women and girls”, including around the issues of trans women in sport, women’s bathrooms and women’s spaces. Dr Michelle Ananda-Rajah (Higgins, ALP, Victoria) dedicated most of her newsletters to policy issues, barely mentioning local community issues.
Beyond how much they choose to talk about policy, MPs also decide whether to emphasise their ability to solve problems or instead negatively highlight the problems that need solving.
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What is this spam saying?
A key determinant of people’s votes is their perspective of how the economy and country are travelling. Thus opposition parties traditionally paint a negative economic picture, while the government claims everything is great.
The Coalition’s e-newsletters are decidedly negative, with almost a quarter mentioning the word “crisis” or “disaster”. Maria Kovacic (Liberal Senator for NSW) managed to talk about the “mental health crisis”, the “housing crisis”, and the cost of living “crisis” in a single e-newsletter. Similarly, Melissa Price led one e-newsletter with “Worse Results on Record” about the national accounts data in December.
Pike referenced the “worst ambulance ramping ever recorded in Australia”. Zoe McKenzie (Liberal, Flinders, Vic) talked about the “worst cost of living crisis since the 1990s”. Dean Smith (Liberal, Senator for WA) mentioned “the worst inflation crises this country has seen”. And Matt O’Sullivan linked the organised crime scandals in the CFMEU to cost of living: “the construction sector disaster only perpetuates the cost of living crisis Australian taxpayers already dealing with”.
Meanwhile, the government is trying to paint a much rosier picture. ALP e-newsletters are scattered with phrases like “good news”, “better”, “improve” and “improving”. For example, in early November 2024, Zaneta Mascarenhas (ALP, Swan, WA) announced “more good news”: “inflation is now at its lowest in nearly four years”. Meanwhile Sally Sitou (ALP, Reid, NSW) wrote that she “wanted to share the good news with you” about pay rises for early childhood educators.
This can be measured by counting the number of words traditionally regarded as positive and negative. Across the campaign, we will use this approach to track campaigning.
Plus, snack on some tasty morsels
Some politicians are particularly good at finding the fun, and we’ll make sure to highlight any standouts.
For example, Dan Repacholi (ALP, Hunter, NSW) posted a YouTube short about a visit from kids at some of his local primary schools, entitled “Highlight of the day? Easily the mullets!!”
In another e-newsletter, Repacholi talked about announcing a “Play Our Way Grant” to upgrade the bathrooms and install air-conditioning for the Kurri Kurri Gymnastics Club, complete with this picture:
Enjoy your weekly spam
Each week of the campaign, we’ll give an update on how things are unfolding, while highlighting important longer-term questions facing our democracy.
Who has the most innovative outreach? Are the “teal” independents and minor parties really doing politics differently? How much dis/misinformation are our MPs dabbling in?
Dive into the spam inbox with us over the next four weeks as we delve into the best, worst and maddest of these e-newsletters.
Have something to say about this article? Write to us at letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication in Crikey’s Your Say. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.