CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | Contact
The 2025 Federal Election is well underway, and it will be an election like no other.
After white-knuckling an entire Parliamentary term of rising interest rate, the Labor government remain confident that the post-pandemic inflation has finally stabilised, and have begun outlining a policy agenda that focuses heavily on education and health.
However, none of that really matters. Because Australians now spend close to half their day staring into little rectangular computers that have destabilised democracy by dictating exactly what the voters get to see and learn via algorithms.
As became abundantly clear during the 2023 Referendum, more than half of the Australian population no longer consumers any free-to-air TV at all.
This means political messaging needs to adapt to different, more unregulated, channels.
As was revealed late last year, The Liberal Party has hired the controversial New Zealand digital agency Topham Guerin to produce content for its election campaign, despite concerns about their track record of using disinformation and deepfakes to hijack to disrupt the political process.
Albanese and Labor must also now take their campaign into the murky waters of social media, while also attempting to maintain the ‘political integrity’ that they promised to bring back to Parliament.
That means, unfortunately Labor cannot simply lie on social media – like the Liberal Party has been doing in their relentless smear campaigns that accuse the Teal Independents of being ‘undercover Greens’ and Bob Katter of being ‘in bed with Labor’.
But how can Albanese game the algorithm without descending into full-blown populist misinformation?
There’s only one avenue to reach working class voters directly on their home screens, and the former Queensland cop that leads the Liberal Party won’t go anywhere near it.
Sydney rapper turned social media sensation, SPANIAN, is an international Youtube star who grew up in the very same streets as Prime Minister Albanese. He is known for his distinct use of inner-Sydney slang, his iconic ‘WOOLLOOMOOLOO’ chest tattoo, and his viral walking tours of the most dangerous suburbs in the world.
Today, the Prime Minister has kicked off the 2025 election campaign by joining Spanian for a tour of the Camperdown public housing flats that he grew up.
In two hours, the video has accrued over 2 million views. Bigger numbers than any news program on any Australian television network will get this year.
