Last post on the use of the ’net and Queensland politics I was awarding points to the National Party for their www.governmentwaste.com.au site. This post when I look at the official sites of the major parties they aren’t doing so well.
Peter Beattie announced the election at 12:30 p.m. today. By 3:00 p.m. or thereabouts I had published my first analysis piece, chatted to a couple of journalists, listened to Springborg’s press conference in response and our election site was well on the way to being finished. I thought it was time to check out the text of Beattie’s speech and a transcript of his first interview so I went across to www.teambeattie.com. It wasn’t there. In fact there was no mention that the election had been called. Maybe it was on the ALP official website. No, www.qld.alp.org.au was dedicated to a piece on the ALP National Convention. No mention of a state election.
In that case I was interested in a copy of Springborg’s response. At www.springborg.com apparently no-one had told the webmaster anything. Surely the Libs? The last entry at www.qld.liberal.org.au was the 12th January. Time to think laterally. There are more than three parties contesting this election.
www.onenation.net.au/qld/qld.html still hasn’t gotten over the fact that Pauline Hanson has been released from jail. Ironically, seeing One Nation were early political party innovators on the Internet, this site is the worst of all that I looked at today.
What about the www.qld.greens.org.au? At last success. A piece had been posted by Juanita Wheeler Deputy Convener at 1:01 p.m., a mere half hour after the Premier’s statement.
I’ve done a trawl this evening. Teambeattie has something up, but they want me to become a member to access it. Sorry guys. I’ll hold out on that one for a while, so I’m still not sure what it is you’re offering. You’ll find I’m not the only one on the ’net who thinks you shouldn’t be so keen to get my email address. Some of you must have girlfriends, boyfriends, spouses and significant others. You must have heard of romance. I like to have things like this teased out of me, not extorted as some sort of commercial quid pro quo for being curious. Afterall, I’m in a position to do you some favours just by doing my job properly. Perhaps you could put a no strings attached easy to access copy up on the party site as it is still obsessing over your party conference.
The National Party has a short statement posted which is much more concise than the take I got from Springborg’s actual interview, but the Liberals are still stuck in the groove of yesterday’s news with no advance on their 12th of January entry.
As the election progresses I’ll do detailed reviews of each of the party’s internet strategies and sites but with the exception of the Greens they all need to do much better than this. Internet sites have their uses, and one of them is providing voters who want it more depth than they can get from other sources. We happen to be the best informed and most interested of voters and our use of the Internet means we “talk” to more people during a day than most. Being niggardly with information on your website suggests that you either don’t care about informed voters, or you have something to hide. Either way, we’ll tell others if we’re not satisfied, so it’s worth keeping us happy.