If you're thoroughly sick of what the major political parties are serving up for this election, JOHN HARRIS suggests you turn to Google to add a bit of bite to the democratic process.

For example, type in the words “Kevin Rudd” and up pops www.pm.gov.au, the online home for the Prime Minister of Australia.

Julia Gillard’s beaming visage does adorn the site if you click through to a page that has been thoroughly de-Kevved, though he does score a mention in the Past PMs section - next to John Howard!

Even more entertaining is Googling for “Mark Latham”: Although early links are to reports about the newshound newbie doorstopping Julia Gillard for 60 Minutes last weekend, the 12th item connects to the Labor Connect website at www.alp.org.au.

Clicking on the ALP’s election website summons another beaming photo of the Prime Minister with the tagline “Connect with Julia” – an invitation that erstwhile Labor leader Latho took literally.

While on Labor’s revamped website, I ignored opportunities to Donate, Volunteer and Vote Labor by postal vote in order to check out how the ALP is using new media to connect with voters.

Of course, there are a heap of You Tube video clips touting the Government’s achievements and condemning Tony Abbott’s Opposition.

There’s a bulletin board called Think Tank where people are invited to suggest policy ideas and comment on them – a concept that was radically engaging in the late 1980s.

The site also includes links to the ALP’s presence on social networking sites including MySpace, FaceBook and Twitter, which reported 3467 “tweet” followers on Monday night, as the PM faced the Q&A audience on the ABC.

The next day, it turned out that the La Gillard’s appearance on Q&A last night became the number one trending topic on Twitter around the world for more than an hour after the show, with more than 5000 participants.

Meanwhile over in Abbottland at www.liberal.org.au, visitors are greeted a patriotic video of Tony Abbott banging on about Labor’s dreadful debt etc in front of a PowerPoint presentation listing the Government’s sins.

As well offering access to Liberal policies and the chance to empty your pockets into their coffers, the site has a Liberal TV section with an entertaining range of anti-Labor ads, headlined by an updated version of the Kevin O’Lemon attack ad that was unleashed on the former PM back in June.

In a campaign that seems more about rhetoric than reality, I also looked up campaign slogans.
Googling the term “moving forward” brought not one ALP website on the first search page.

By contrast, the term “real action” summons the Liberal website to spot number three (although when I hear it spoken, it sounds like the word “re-election” said with a Texan accent).

Speaking of accents, a quick search for “Mr Rabbit” shows I’m not the only person in Australia who worries about the Prime Minister’s repeated warnings against electing a Charlotte Zolotow character.

The best part of my Google tour of the 2010 election was searching for information about my local seat of Sturt.

This revealed www.tallyroom.com.au, a private site set up by former Greens candidate Ben Raue, and The Green Guide site, run by the ABC’s election analyst Antony Green.

Just as the Web simplifies researching consumer electronic devices, such sites offer a great chance to pre-shop your local candidates before you turn up to number the boxes on August 21.

But be careful of what you click on: The Australian Electoral Commission has received complaints from voters who received Liberal Party advertising from Google searches for local candidates.

Such “sponsored links” appear at the top of a Google's search results page when an advertiser – in this case the Liberal Party – pays for the prominence of particular links.

There’s nothing wrong with this practice – it just proves that not all links are created equal.

John Harris is managing director of Impress Media Australia. Email jharris@impress.com.au.

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