He Scoops, They Score!

Sometimes things just come together. We've only done a soft launch of the Youdecide2007 site which will provide hyperlocal citizen journalism coverage of the upcoming federal election in Australia, with a number of electorate profiles, interviews with local citizen and MPs, news releases, and opinion pieces now available on the site - but that hasn't stopped the site from attracting a good number of visitors, some press coverage, and now even a mention in parliamentary question time. A little while ago, Jason Wilson did a phone interview with Liberal Party member for Herbert, Peter Lindsay (available on the site as a nice YouTube clip overlaid with images from the electorate). In the interview, the MP rather appears to digress from his prepared talking points (about half-way through the clip), and makes the somewhat general claim that "young people today are financially illiterate", thereby causing themselves unnecessary mortgage stress. The federal opposition was quick to pick up on the story, and the Honorable Kevin07 engaged in some opportunistic political point-scoring on the basis of the statement.

Somewhat more bizarrely, Lindsay also reminisced about his own past:

I remember my own case. We sat on milk crates in the lounge room until we could afford chairs. We had makeshift shelves to put ornaments on and so on, but you did that in those days. You waited until you could -- you didn't live beyond your means and you didn't try to keep up with the Joneses. Things were more responsible.

(Milk crates? Luxury, I say! You were lucky to have a room!)

The story has also been picked up by parts of the mainstream media - it got a good run in the Fairfax papers. Good work, Jason - not sure it will quite develop into a full-blown crategate, but you never know... For more discussion of the seat of Herbert, financial illiteracy, and all things electoral, tune into Youdecide!

Update: there's a further QUT news release about the story as well, which has some more background information about the Youdecide project.

Technorati : Australian election, Peter Lindsay, Youdecide2007, citizen journalism, mortgage stress
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