With more Australians coming online before election day to find out more about the people and policies that will inform their vote, we’ve put together an elections hub at www.google.com.au/election that brings together the latest election-related news, commentary, videos, and trends from across the web.
The page curates the top stories on the major issues of the campaign, and hosts up-to-date videos from our community of YouTube partners via the Australia Votes YouTube elections hub (www.youtube.com/australiavotes). Official party profiles are just a click away; you can even join face-to-face conversations with candidates on Google+ Hangouts On Air held in conjunction with Fairfax Media.
To mark the launch of the election hub, we’ve taken a look at search interest in the hot button issues across the country.
We looked at national search interest around the key issues of the economy, health care, broadband, marriage equality, climate change, education, and families from the past 12 months. We then identified which issues mattered most to each state by comparing the proportion of searches to the national average.
Here’s what we found:
- Victoria and South Australia have the strongest interest in health, which includes searches on the government’s NDIS scheme and Medicare. These states also have a high interest in education matters such as the Gonski plan and school funding.
- Western Australia and Queensland have the highest proportion of search interest in economic issues such as tax, interest rates, and employment.
- Tasmania and New South Wales showed the strongest interest in broadband and the NBN. Tasmanians were almost twice as likely to search about marriage equality on Google than the rest of Australia.
- New South Wales and Victoria had higher than national average searches for family issues such as paternity leave and childcare.
You can find this infographic and more on the Google elections page. Keep an eye on the hub as the campaign unfolds for more useful voter information before Election Day.
Posted by Johnny Luu, Communication and Public Affairs Manager, Google Australia
