AusPol101: No one falls victim to internet trolls more than ScoMo, but not for the things that matter.

 

 

We’re officially less than three weeks out from the federal election. Pressure is building, and both major party leaders are finding it increasingly hard to take the high road. But the same thing is happening online, and as an avid follower of politics it’s difficult to ignore the problem of it all.

 

I’ll be the first to admit that I love a good internet fight, but I choose them well. Late night boredom yet again grabs hold of me and possesses me to scroll a One Nation page on the hunt for someone’s grandfather to debate. But it seems in the past few weeks the online political commentary on Scott Morrison is unrelenting. That’s not to say I think any of the posts are undeserved, in fact I think the opposite, but my problem is the focus shift that may not actually help the case posters intend.

 

 

 

 

In the most recent debate on the topic of NDIS cuts, the Prime Minister fumbled when telling a mother of a child with autism that he and his wife were “blessed” to have children who didn’t. But I’m not sure what else to expect from a man who was reported by The Saturday Paper to have paid $190,000 out of taxpayer money for an empathy consultant, which is a completely normal area for a world leader to need assistance in.

 

Images of the Prime Minister with a lei around his neck while the country was burning still resurface every time another scandal pops up, but his comments on the matter seem to fade from memory. If anything, his belief that he was doing nothing wrong because “I don’t hold a hose mate” and “I’ve got critics who say you shouldn’t be spending money on helping people during these crises” hold much more to his character than a dorky dad-photo ever can. But that’s what sticks in the age of social media. Just recently a post of a suspiciously pale chicken korma curry on the Prime Minister’s official Facebook dominated the digital political sphere for the past four days.

 

 

 

 

Something that completely overshadows the fact that he was photographed texting during last week’s Anzac ceremony in Darwin, or that he just ruled out a referendum for Indigenous Voice if re-elected. Though neither are ideal, when people are laughing at him for doing something dumb, they briefly forget to be mad, and for swing voters that works in ScoMo’s favour. Though, I will admit that a tag line ‘Strong Curry. Strong Economy. Stronger Future’, a play on the Coalition’s key election slogan, is hilariously ironic when the meal resembles something you would yell at your dog not to eat on the footpath.

 

 

 

 

It makes you wonder as to how far into a high-profile job position can you get, such as this, before you realise and tell yourself ‘we should probably get a handle on this social media thing.’ However, I suspect they’ve got more control on it than they lead us to think. Social media is a difficult medium to learn and run a campaign on, so when ill-formatted TikTok’s and infographics fall flat it’s easy to identify it as a mistake, but PR is a different playing field. It’s hard to say if these social media fails are a calculated move or not, but in politics these things are rarely ever just coincidental. After all, we’re talking about an elected official with a fully equip social media team, not my dad posting of photo of my brother’s footy game with his head cropped out. The daggy dad look is a tool to be utilised, and one that they’ve shown can easily be swapped out for a more professional, clean cut look when need be.

 

So, it seems all well and good when the Coalition proposes an anti-trolling bill in Parliament, no one can disagree that we need to protect Australians from prejudiced and discriminatory material on social media. But it’s a thinly veiled attempt to shut down any attempts to continue posting critical comments on Federal (LN-P) parliamentarians, by allowing loopholes for the government to sue platforms for allowing such slander against the good Liberal name. After all, this is the same coalition that push for – and passed – the religious discrimination bill, which allowed for prejudice and discriminatory material to be used as long as you support his buddies over at Hillsong. Hate is only justified when it’s students being punished and expelled for being a part of the lgbtq+ community.

 

As we get closer to the 21^st, both parties are going to throw all the best distraction they can at voters to forget about all their wrong doings. While ScoMo’s reputation for being incompetent is set in stone, don’t let the Liberal Party distract you with content that makes you think of his errors as harmless Facebook posts with undercooked curries.

 

 

Read Grace’s other columns HERE.

 

 

 

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