Text pest Palmer losing youth vote
CLIVE Palmer has been in constant contact with young Gold Coasters. On their laptops with YouTube advertising, on their mobile phones with texts.
Surely there must be a better way of getting votes?
“This Parliament stuff, when will this stop?” a Coast Year 7 student asks as he waits to hit “skip ad” on a United Australia Party advertisement which popped up before his music video.
A young female office manager is polling her colleagues: “Are you getting these texts from Clive Palmer?” Three of them nod their heads. “How did he get our numbers,” one of them replies.
The messages are alarming. “Your freedom is under threat,” one of the texts says. “Watch Channel 9 between 7.20-7.35pm for an important 2-minute announcement.”
Another is an invitation to the official campaign launch. Then this piece of irony. “When elected, United Australia Party will ban unsolicited political text messages which Labor and Liberal have allowed.”
UAP corflutes are hard to find in my northern Coast suburb. On the main road, the image of the LNP’s Stuart Robert appears each morning on the drive to work, with his head shorn off. A Greens candidate fared much worse. Someone took a cigarette lighter to his face. Bored youths, extremists at the edge of the political protest vote, or an
opponent could have done the damage.
The reality is young people are a large portion of the one-third of the electorate disengaged with politics.
What do our youngest MPs – Labor’s Meaghan Scanlon in Gaven and the LNP’s Sam O’Connor in Bonney – believe is the solution?
Ms Scanlon has not stopped doorknocking since winning her state seat in late 2017. One of her smartest moves is a portable sign, put up at the corner of a street, alerting constituents to her visit.
The contact works when the political message is personalised. A post of an old photograph of herself and “little brother Callum” on the Annual International Day of People with a Disability was a massive hit.
Mr O’Connor, a media adviser before being elected, has also discovered non-political posts receive much more reaction.
“Facebook and Instagram is how I do it and I try to keep it real and be approachable,” he says.
“Young people are political but they hate politics. I rarely mention even the names of the parties and I try not to say the usual boring lines.”
In Parliament this week the Bonney MP talked about a cap on donations to stop a self-proclaimed billionaire like Mr Palmer spending up to $60 million on “some of the worst advertising” in an attempt to win a Senate seat.
Dr Paul Williams, a political analyst from Griffith University, agrees about the personal touch being important in a digital age.
“Doorknocking is still incredibly invaluable,” he says. “Again you are only looking at 30 to 35 per cent of swinging or minor party voters.
“It depends on how good a doorknocker you are. Some politicians who have doorknocked me have been incredibly arrogant.”
If you are personable, can sustain a conversation, listen to the other person’s views and even better return to their home again – this is the turning point.
A voter who gets to shake a candidate’s hand not just once but twice – well, they will need a good reason not to back you when they go to the poll to vote for their next MP.