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With almost a third of votes cast already in postal and pre-poll voting for the Voice to Parliament referendum, the “yes” campaign is ramping up its advertising and media efforts. Both campaigns are in the home straight ahead of Saturday’s crucial ballot.

Recent polls indicate that in the closing weeks of the campaign, support for the “no” campaign has slowed somewhat, but “yes” still sits at around 42% nationally.

This week, Professor Simon Jackman’s average of public polling placed “yes” at 42.7% nationally, with a 1.7-point margin of error. The best recent polls for “yes” continue to be those fielded by Roy Morgan and Essential, with support in the mid-40s. Newspoll (now administered by Pyxis) and Redbridge, meanwhile, have “yes” support in the high-30s.

What’s happening in online advertising?

Consistent with what we have seen during the course of the campaign, the Yes23 campaign has outpaced other paid referendum campaign groups in its online advertising spending on Meta platforms (Facebook and Instagram), the most-used platforms for online advertising during this campaign.

Four of the top five online advertisers are supporting the “yes” campaign, with A$364,000 in total advertising spending this past week. Yes23’s ad spend is distributed fairly evenly (relative to population) across the mainland states, reflecting its goal to attract national support.

The top “no” campaign advertisers on Meta spent just $46,000 this past week. This includes Fair Australia, supported by Advance Australia; Warren Mundine’s separate “Not My Voice” campaign, and Nationals MP Keith Pitt.

In comparison to Yes23’s blanket coverage, Fair Australia is chiefly targeting South Australia and to a lesser degree Tasmania. Assuming it will win sympathetic states like Western Australia and Queensland, the “no” campaign only needs to win one more state (either South Australia or Tasmania) to ensure the referendum fails.

Interestingly, Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price is no longer spending on social media advertising. Perhaps this is because she already has a sizeable presence on Meta (with a quarter million followers) and is generating millions of likes for her “no” campaign videos on the free platform, TikTok.

What’s happening in the news and social media?

During the past week, which aligns with the commencement of pre-polling, our analysis of free media coverage – print, radio, TV and social media – shows that Voice coverage has unsurprisingly increased in volume since our last data report two weeks ago.

The Voice referendum made up 7.3% of total coverage during the week, up from 6.7% reported in our previous analysis.

Recent stories getting the most attention on X (formerly Twitter) were:

• an open letter from more than 100 health organisations advocating in favour of “yes”
• widespread discussion of the uncivil nature of the referendum debate
• the start of early voting
• and Garigarra Riley-Mundine, the daughter of leading “no” campaigner Warren Mundine, publicly supporting the Voice.

How we further analysed media content

But what can we see about the distinctiveness of the campaign coverage since the referendum was announced on August 30?

One way to answer that is to look at the supply side of the debates. Supply represents what (and how much) information is in the public domain – as opposed to the demand side, which reflects how Australians engage with or react to the coverage.

To better understand this, we analysed about half a million Twitter posts and mainstream news stories from Meltwater, a global media monitoring company, combined with 50,000 Facebook and Instagram (public) posts that have appeared since the announcement of the referendum date.

We then used an algorithm to categorise this content into one of five distinctly relevant narratives. Put simply, think of a machine that can organise a collection of many different LEGO blocks (or in our case, media items) into a predetermined number of bins (in our case, topics), based on the LEGO blocks’ similarities (in our case, the key words that make up these narratives).

The algorithm gives us a quick – and rough – estimate of what’s being said in the public sphere across our screens, airwaves and newspapers during the campaign.

As seen below, about a quarter of the data we analysed – the largest distinct category – comes from general media commentary, constituting a complex mix of positive and negative coverage reflecting Australia’s increasingly polarised media landscape.

We estimate language supporting the two main “yes” campaigns comprised over 40% of the public debate, providing mostly affirmative messages about the referendum.

The algorithm categorised the “no” camp’s distinctly negative language at well under 20% of the overall debate. This included coverage from Sky News, which has been much more negative about the Voice.

General voter information coming from a range of sources, including the Australian Electoral Commission and the Australian government, made up another about 18% of the total media and social media content during the campaign.

All this data tells us a little about what’s been said during the campaign and the evolving nature of the debate as various narratives gain and lose popularity.

So, if the “yes” side has been contributing the lion’s share of Voice content over the past six weeks, why are the polls not closer?

That’s a complicated question because not all media and messaging are equal. Nor do we know how well campaigning actually changes voter behaviour.

We are also just looking at the supply side of free media only, not paid advertising or private messaging spaces. And we know the “no” side has had millions of people engaging with and sharing its content, which is not tracked here.

Rough estimates like these efforts, though, suggest there’s much more to be learned – both about our nation and, crucially, about ourselves.

Andrea Carson, Professor of Political Communication, Department of Politics, Media and Philosophy, La Trobe University; Justin Phillips, Senior Lecturer, University of Waikato; Max Grömping, Senior Lecturer, Griffith University; Rebecca Strating, Director, La Trobe Asia and Associate Professor, La Trobe University, La Trobe University, and Simon Jackman, Professor, University of Sydney

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Tax cuts, crime, the cost of living, potholes and co-governance … these and various other issues are now familiar to most voters. But there has been one major election area missing the serious debate it needs: foreign policy.

Whichever parties form the next government, and whoever becomes prime minister, they will also be charged with negotiating New Zealand’s place in a dynamic and changing world.

Military and security alliances, trade, climate change and foreign aid are all presenting significant challenges. So here are some of the questions any incoming administration should be able to answer to the satisfaction of voters.

Defence and security

Having recently deepened military relationships with Australia and Japan, New Zealand needs to be clear about whether it will join “pillar two” of the AUKUS security pact between the US, UK and Australia.

Directly related to the AUKUS question are the hard military implications: who or what would New Zealand fight for? Were the US and China to square off over Taiwan, with Australia (New Zealand’s only formal ally) drawn into such a conflict, would New Zealand send military help?

Less speculatively, will New Zealand continue to send naval assets to support exercises aimed at defending freedom of the seas, given the very recent history of Chinese military confrontation in the disputed South China Sea?

The Pacific is also in a state of geopolitical flux. New Zealand has upgraded its military relationship with Fiji, and the US has secured “unimpeded access” to strategic ports and airports in Papua New Guinea. But how does New Zealand respond to the “comprehensive partnership” just announced between China and Timor-Leste covering military exchanges, training and exercises?

Ukraine and defence budgets

The war in the Ukraine will also demand attention. While New Zealand is not directly involved, it provides military training, financial, legal and humanitarian assistance.  Does this continue or ramp up, or does the level of aid depend on what New Zealand’s allies do?

Further to that, what is New Zealand’s official position on what peace would look like for Ukraine? Would New Zealand support a peace deal that involved territory trade-offs or did not include the prosecution of war crimes?

Related to that is the uncertainty over US commitment to supporting Ukraine, given some Republican resistance. New Zealand’s next government will face potentially very unpredictable outcomes from the US presidential election in November 2024. What happens if Donald Trump returns to power?

Many of New Zealand’s key allies (including NATO countries) are spending or aiming to spend 2% of GDP (or more) on their militaries. New Zealand currently only spends about 1.5% of GDP. Ideally, voters would know whether that will increase, by how much, and by when.

More specifically, would any extra spending see the New Zealand Defence Force adopt militarised artificial intelligence technologies?

Trade and sanctions

An open, predictable and rules-based global economy can no longer be taken for granted. Regional trade integration has been disrupted, with a shift towards unilateral trade policies and agreements.

What is New Zealand’s response, and will local exporters be encouraged and helped to diversify their markets?

Beyond the simple mantras of negotiating new trade agreements with India or the US, how will that diversification and continued growth be achieved?

Will New Zealand support China’s application to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for the Trans-Pacific Partnership – or would it back Taiwan’s?

Will New Zealand continue to support the use of sanctions outside the United Nations’ system (such as those imposed on Russia), and will it consider extending sanctions to countries for grievous human rights abuses (such as those imposed on Iran)?

Climate and foreign aid

Climate change presents extreme challenges domestically and internationally. New Zealand’s overall performance is rated “highly insufficient” by the independent Climate Action Tracker. So what will the next government do at a global level?

Where does New Zealand stand on mechanisms such as the Green Climate Fund, the world’s largest multilateral fund dedicated to helping developing countries address the climate crisis, and will it increase pledged funding for it?

And will New Zealand continue to believe in and support the Global Methane Pledge, a joint US-European Union initiative to reduce global methane emissions by at least 30% from 2020 levels by 2030?

The UN sets a target for all developed nations to give 0.7% of their gross national income as aid to developing countries, but New Zealand only manages to give 0.23% – well below the OECD average. Will the next government seek to increase or even decrease this? And would it support the creation of a regional development bank or cooperative aid projects with China?

Finally, New Zealand will need to confirm if it will keep taking 1,500 refugees annually.

These are not easy questions. But the New Zealand public should know the answers before they vote – and before the next government positions the country in an increasingly turbulent global order.

Alexander Gillespie, Professor of Law, University of Waikato

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

“Professor Lodge was the first person to be made a Professor of the music programme at the University and his guiding hand has helped build music at the University to what it is today,” says University of Waikato Vice-Chancellor, Professor Neil Quigley.

Dr Tangiwai Rewi (Waikato-Ngāti Tīpā, Ngāti Amaru, Ngāti Tahinga) is a Waikato alumna, completing a Bachelor of Education in 1989 and Higher Diploma of Teaching in 1997. She also holds a Master of Indigenous Studies (2006) and PhD (2018) from the University of Otago.

Dr Rewi currently manages customary fisheries nationally at the Ministry for Primary Industries,

and has previously held senior roles at the Ministry of Education, Te Tumu, School of Māori, Pacific and Indigenous Studies at the University of Otago and was the foundation Tumuaki (Principal) at Tōku Māpihi Maurea Kura Kaupapa Māori.

Dr Rewi’s research interests and expertise include te reo me ngā tikanga Māori, Māori Education and Māori Pedagogy, and preserving the narratives of rūruhi, koroheke, and kaumātua.

Dr Rewi is looking forward to returning to Waikato and will join the University in November.

“Mahia te mahi hei painga mō te iwi,” Te Puea Herangi.

Te Ihorangi Māori, Deputy Vice-Chancellor Māori, Dr Sarah-Jane Tiakiwai, says the University is delighted to have someone of Dr Rewi’s calibre joining the leadership team and also paid tribute to Professor Sandy Morrison for her leadership of the Faculty over the past couple of years.