With an election due in Australia before the end of the year, Google said the website – google.com.au\/election2007 – would be a powerful tool for voters and would help generate debate during the upcoming campaign.<\/p>\n
Prime Minister John Howard, who has announced policies online for the first time in the lead-up to the election, said politicians were now taking the Internet seriously.<\/p>\n
"I recognise that this medium is not some sort of gimmick but can provide an uninterrupted, direct and open channel between decision-makers and voters," Howard said in a video presentation at the site's launch.<\/p>\n
Howard's conservative government has targeted Internet users as it seeks to reverse poor opinion polls and win a fifth term in office.<\/p>\n
Google's Australian-developed election site includes a feature called "On the Record", where users can type in a politician's name, along with an issue of their choosing.<\/p>\n
It then scours parliamentary transcripts and the politician's personal website to find any statements on the issue, allowing voters to check whether their representatives are being consistent.<\/p>\n
It also gives voters electoral information through a range of online tools including YouTube, GoogleEarth and GoogleMaps. Google said it was the first time so many features had been available on a single election website.<\/p>\n
Peter Garrett, the former singer with protest rockers Midnight Oil who is now environment spokesman for the opposition Labor Party, said the Internet would have a massive impact on the election.<\/p>\n
"This will probably be a Google election," Garrett told reporters.<\/p>\n
"I think it's going to encourage a generation of Australians who have used online access as one of their major communications, education and socialisation tools from a very young age, to key into what I think will be a very exciting political campaign."<\/p>\n
Cabinet minister Joe Hockey agreed but said television remained the most powerful medium for sending a political message.<\/p>\n
"Television still remains the biggest distribution," he said.<\/p>\n
While parliamentarians have embraced the Internet, its user-generated content means it is also a potential minefield for politicians.<\/p>\n
The stoutly-built Hockey appeared on a morning talk show earlier this year and briefly donned a pair of green Shrek ears as a gag. Footage of the incident has haunted him on YouTube ever since.<\/p>\n
Garrett conceded politicians were vulnerable to negative comments posted on their YouTube offerings but said allowing people to "vent" was a small price to pay for the benefits of online politicking.<\/p>\n
"It makes us more accountable – it can't be a bad thing for democracy," he said.<\/p>\n
Government officials were last month forced to deny editing hundreds of entries in the online encyclopedia Wikipedia to remove negative comments.<\/p>\n
Tracking software reportedly showed government computers were used to delete a reference to Treasurer Peter Costello as "Captain Smirk", while a change traced to Howard's department bizarrely stated "poo bum dicky wee wee".<\/p>\n
Opponents of the US-led war in Iraq put US Vice President Dick Cheney on the spot last month when they posted a 1994 interview on YouTube in which he said US occupation would result in a "quagmire" and lead to many US casualties.<\/p>\n
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