It’s been a tumultuous week in Australian politics - at times for all the wrong reasons -, and social media have played an important role in the events. My take on the impact of Twitter on the Liberal leadership crisis and political reporting has now been published at ABC Unleashed , and I’m reposting it here. I think I like my original title better…

Coalition All Atwitter over Climate Change

The extraordinary events in the Liberal party room over the past few days are destined to enter the annals of Australian politics for a number of reasons - not least because of the unprecedented flow of up-to-the-minute, first-hand, indeed first-person information through the short messaging service Twitter to the waiting journalists and the wider public beyond.

News about the latest statements for and against the CPRS from individual MPs, and updates on the numbers supporting or opposing Malcolm Turnbull were received and retweeted within seconds of their arrival, and at times one could form the impression that those waiting for a resolution had a better sense of Turnbull’s numbers than the Opposition Leader himself.

Finally, Turnbull’s antics at his press conferences, and the statements of politicians and pundits during various subsequent interviews, also found an instant audience of commentators, often responding to blatant inaccuracies and naked spin in the way they wished journalists would.

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Liberal Party, journalism, politics ABC Unleashed, Australia, climate change, Liberal Party, Malcolm Turnbull, politics, Twitter

New post on the ABC’s Opinion Page is cross-posted over the fold. There’s some other great stuff there today, including a piece on a useful possible running-mate for Barry O’Bama

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Andrew Landeryou, Liberal Party, Victoria, blogging abc, Andrew Landeryou, Blog-gate, blogging, Liberal Party, Victoria

I’m sure many of you have Andrew Landeryou’s “The Other Cheek” in your RSS readers. Those who do will have seen that over this weekend he’s been revealing a story about the Victorian Liberals that he’s calling “blog-gate“. The Sunday Age also wrote this story up today.

Two Liberal staffers, it seems, have been anonymously authoring a blog (now “disappeared”) called hewhostandsfornothing.blogspot.com which was critical of State Liberal Leader, Ted Baillieu. Their anonymity was shattered when the Liberal Party launched an investigation and found that their blog had been set up and maintained from computers at the Libs’ Victorian headquarters. The staffers responsible - Simon Morgan and John Osborn - were summarily sacked by the State Director, Julian Sheezel. There are suggestions (prinicipally from Landeryou) that as Morgan was Sheezel’s right hand man, he must have had some knowledge of the “dissident” blog.

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blogging anonymity, blogging, Elder, Landeryou, Liberal Party, Victoria