16
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 31 May 2026
16 points (83.3% liked)
Australian Politics
1814 readers
112 users here now
A place to discuss Australia Politics.
Rules
This community is run under the rules of aussie.zone.
Recommended and Related Communities
Be sure to check out and subscribe to our related communities on aussie.zone:
- Australia (general)
- Australian News
- World News (from an Australian Perspective)
- Aussie Environment
- Ask an Australian
- AusFinance
- Pictures
- AusLegal
- Aussie Frugal Living
- Cars (Australia)
- Coffee
- Chat
- Aussie Zone Meta
- bapcsalesaustralia
- Food Australia
Plus other communities for sport and major cities.
https://aussie.zone/communities
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
I remain sceptical until an election gets closer. I don't understand why the budget is being received so negatively, though. Is there something about it that is making people particularly concerned, or is just that there are no direct handouts or quick fixes so people remain entrenched in their doomerism? From everything I've read it does not seem to be at all deserving of this level of backlash.
People have left reliable reporting and information sources behind and only subscribe to brain melting propaganda feeds which trivialize and distort.
Emotional appeals such as ragebait and doomerism increase engagement and soc media platforms are all engagement farms. It is a combination of the algorithmic nature of those platforms promoting content that appeals emotionally and organizations taking advantage and creating content aimed at increasing societal division and undermining trust in government and institutions. As people are getting emotional manipulation in place of information it just naturally carries over into everyday conversation I guess as it fires them up.
I admit I don't follow the news like I did either. I would watch ABC/SBS news, longer form news/current affairs on the same platforms, multiple newspapers. I tend to just skim some web pages these days or find out about stuff because it gets mentioned here. I am much less informed than I was 20 years ago but with the media environment the way it is now I wouldn't want to consume as much as I once did.
I agree with that.
Many years ago, I had a paper subscription to both The Age and The Australian; and both were respectable publications at the time... Whereas now neither of them are. There is still good journalism happening, but it is no longer the norm. And so it isn't as easy to consume it as a routine, or talk about it casually to people in slightly different social circles.
I feel like almost every story is like "here is what some people with obviously vested interests say about such-and-such". Or the other flavour of story which is basically "shit's fucked. It sucks, right?" For politics in particular, I see so many stories about whether some policy is popular, and again opinions from vested interests... but very little objective comparison. Like, people aren't proposing policy changes because they are complete idiots. They have reasons. So I'd like the reporting on them to say what those reasons are, and look into whether or not the policy will meet the goals of those reasons.
Ok. I feel like I'm whinging and being a bit vague. Like I said before, there is still some good journalism going on - and I don't really put a lot of effort into looking for it. So I shouldn't complain too much about what I see. I guess I'm just bit a worried about what everyone else sees too. Rage-bait emotional manipulation, mostly.
So, I have a list I've been slowly adding to over the last few years of independent media in Australia with journalists doing good work. There might be some in this you might be interested in.
List of independent media in Aus
If anyone has any ideas of what I should do with a list like this, except sharing it occasionally like this, I'd interested to hear about it.
I suppose I'm guilty of a lack of awareness regarding my own habits. I listen to longer form, discussion style podcasts about complex issues and I follow the ABC's coverage of Australian politics reasonably closely. Maybe this is having a bigger impact on my understanding of current affairs than I thought, which is why the (I assume) majority who don't share these habits are now in a completely different world to me.
I too would agree that the only poll that determines the government is the one on election day and we've seen that go one way or the other because of a few days propaganda (<3 the westminister system, so good).
I think it's mostly that:
a) very few people read any sort of long form analysis or really any news at all.
b) rich people are highly motivates to distribute propaganda against this budget and to downplay how rich they are
c) lots of people who are yolked wage-slave proles (almost all the population) don't understand how low down the economic ladder they are and aren't motivated to think about it since it's humilating in a culture that equated wealth with worth and worthiness.
d) shares are basically the only way you can (un)realistically dream of escaping your chains atm and "labour can tax you out of escaping" is easy propaganda for (b) to hit (c) with.
It’s probably just warped by social media, giving everyone a personalized version of One Nation while every little thing in Labor’s budget is peeled apart.
I hate to sound so cynical, but I’ve seen this movie before. You should read exit poll reporting of what voters think will happen after they vote in populist candidates.