It looks like the election is just around the corner. Rumours suggest we are looking at an August 7th or August 14th Election and our federal politicians are working late and long to tidy up before the election.

More than a few voters are going to go to the web to work out who to vote for, so let’s take a look at the official sites of the Liberals, ALP, Democrats and Greens and see what’s what.

Initial Impression

The Liberal site dissapointed immediately. I knew there would be some menus somewhere but browser after browser failed to show anything. I tried Safari, Firefox on Mac and PC, IE on the Mac and finally went to IE6 on a PC in the office and managed to get the menus going along with the tacky applet news ticker (very 1998). There was the expected Australian flag waving in the top left corner and these words “Protecting, Securing, Building Australia’s Future” which sounds eerily like the side of an American police car (”To serve and protect”). I’m going to find this website hard to like.

Next, the ALP site. Very Red, White and Blue. Way over the top with it’s Red,White and Blueness. It works with Safari and Firefox no problems. Australian Flag in the top left also, like the Libs and a total of four appearances of the Southern Cross on the homepage. A bit over done. This site is hard to look at. They need to sort these colours out. That said, the main heading on the page is “Opportunity for All” next to a smiling picture of Latham. That has a good feeling about it. No menus. Has a sidebar down the left and right with a bunch of links. Pretty accessible.

A bit easier on the eye is the Democrats site. Red white and blue are missing, replace with a soft greens and white. No sign of the flag or the southern cross, thankfully. But the banner on the page shows a bunch of dark suited sombre looking democrats with the big heading “The Lie Detectors”. Is this an attempt to look like a TV crime show. Doesn’t work for me. There’s a small, old green and yellow Democrats logo on the right. Looks classic 1980s or something, casting back to their heyday, I guess. In general the site looks clean and there is easy access to current news here and thumbnail images are used well. I’d tend to linger here much longer than either Liberal or ALP.

The Greens site has come a long way. The look is modern and spacious, the least crowded of all the sites. No flags or southern crosses. News stories are well laid out with nice photos for each story. Somebody is putting in a lot of effort to make this site comfortable. Two shades of green and white with the occasional red highlight works well. Nice to see candidates and their photos down the right hand side of the page – but that’s easy if there are only a few of them, I suppose.

So to summarise my initial impressions:

Liberal: broken
ALP: red, white and blue
Democrats: the lie detectors???
Greens: best so far.

The Leader

Next, let’s try and get a feel for leadership of these parties. How do these sites present their leadership? I’m going to count home page appearances and look for defining statements. This is fun.

On the Lib’s home page, there are five John Howards. Mostly dark suits and ties. Oh, look, there a flag behind him in one, and there he is posing with the military, jacket off, all smiles. Now, what does he stand for. Here’s his home page statement:

Australia is the best country in the world.

That is why we must do all in our power to protect, secure and build Australia’s future.

and it has a signature underneath. The whole thing, including a photo, is wrapped up in a business-card-sized image, including the text. Strange.

“Australia is the best country in the world”. Oh, for goodness sake, what a load of old cobblers. He’s going all simple on us. I’m afraid it doesn’t do it for me.

A fresh-faced Mark Latham appears once on the ALP’s home page. Taken from above, it makes him look young and energetic. And I like the aspiring statement right next to it, which take centre stage on the front page (excerpted here):

Opportunity for all

I believe in ambition and aspiration. I believe in the powerful combination of hard work, good family and the civilising role of government services.

I say that economic aspiration is good and social mobility is even better – all Australians climbing the ladder of opportunity.

…

I guess the ALP are taking the risk that people will actually read enough of this to get the idea. It works for me better than the very simple Howard statement, though.

Over in Democrat land, leadership is lower key. Andrew Bartlett leads the ‘lie detector’ pack in the page header, and appears again in the Spotlight section where his National Convention address is referred to. Nothing dramatic or interesting, and I get the feeling that is the way the Democrats like it.

The Greens show three Bob Browns, two Andrew Wilkies (including the cover of his book) and even one John Howard, but he’s only there as Wilkie’s sparring partner for the seat of Bennelong. Several MPs, including Brown have a say in news items on the front page, but there is no leadership statement as such. That is appropriate for the Greens.

My summary:

Liberal: ubiquitous Howard but strangely simple message
ALP: Latham’s youth & aspiration
Democrats: who’s the leader?
Greens: low key

News presentation

I’m interested in getting new direct from the parties as the election nears, so how do these websites provide the news:

The Liberal site links to a bunch of stories from the front page. There are no summaries or photos though. Clicking through leads to boring media release pages with no photos and they are mostly if not all on separate sites. No RSS feeds of news. Why am I not surprised by this.

The ALP shows the latest news below the Latham’s aspirational speech on the home page. Again no summaries or photos. Clicks through lead to press releases, with an MP’s photo if you are lucky, but there are ‘related items’ indicated. Not that exciting really. No RSS newsfeeds either.

Ah, the Democrats get it. A headline item at the top of the page, more stories down the page with photos and good long summaries. I think there must be a content management system behind this one. Following links leads you to standard press releases, but there are still on the site, and you can browse amongst them. No sign of RSS either.

The Greens have gone all the way – using the plone content management system. News is presented in the centre of the main page in big stores with More… links at the bottom. There are well-chosen photos on each story which follow through to the full stories. Easy reading. No RSS.

My summary:

Liberal: boring
ALP: slightly less boring
Democrats: good browsing
Greens: visual, friendly

Subscribing

I want to end up with the news from each party as the campaigns proceed. So, like a true sucker, I’ve signed up to all of the party’s email newsletters. Here I’ll comment on the signup process and the results so far.

The Liberals have a signup field on the home page. Type in an email address, then a click and you are presented with a form asking for your title (defaults to Mr), name and postcode. You can select HTML or text emails then. Clicking ok leads you to a terse page indicating you are on the list, with another form for dobbing in up to five friends. I felt a bit abused by this process. It certainly isn’t up to good web standards. There was no email confirmation step. But they delivered the first bit of news into my email box. Unfortunately it was a nerr-nerr cheap shot negative statement criticising the ALP for not all voting the same way on the FTA, so the content didn’t inspire me. Unsubscribing is easy, which we like.

Over at the ALP, a front page field and a click leads to a page explaining a confirmation email will be sent. Clicking a link in that email leads to a page asking for title and name, but at least the title is optional. Then a click and you are thanked for confirming. No email has come in from the ALP yet, so I can’t comment on that.

You have to register with the Democrats to get email from them. Name, email and postcode are compulsory here, and you end up with a number for a username and they make a password for you (sent via email). But then you get to select what issues and newsletters you are interested in. This is good and flexible, if a bit daunting at first. Within a few hours I’ve had two emails from the Democrats, so they are using this stuff too.

Type in an email address from the Green’s home page and you can get a confirming email which after a reply puts you on an email list. Low-tech and simple. Works. No emails have come in from the Greens yet.

My summary:
Liberals: works. dob in your mates
ALP: standard
Democrats: all the bells and whistles
Greens: simple and functional

——–

Now the summary of summaries:

In terms of websites:

* I’d go Democrats for respect and efficiency
* Greens for friendliness, clean lines and simplicity
* Labor for something temporarily aspirational
* Liberal if I wanted more of the same and had a PC running IE.

Dear reader, I’m writing about websites not party policies. If you want to comment, please don’t flame on about policies of the parties. Let’s talk about their websites here. I’ll get to policies later.