RSS Feed
September 3rd, 2013 
Peter Nolan
Updated
It is an aspect of modern political campaigns that is rarely seen – the call centres for the two major parties, from where more than two million calls have already been made.
These call centres, staffed by volunteers, do not just call people at random. Each call is targeted to those crucial swinging voters in marginal seats.
They are found by combining telephone directories, the electoral roll and census data with masses of information the parties have been able to collect over the decades – from email lists, campaigns, petitions, doorknocking and private polling.
Several thousand voters in a dozen key electorates can often determine the outcome and it is these voters that both parties aim to win over.
Jamie Clements, the NSW Labor general secretary and state campaign director, was inspired by US president Barack Obama’s campaign to establish a major new call centre in Sydney’s west at Parramatta.
“This call centre is exactly modelled on call centres from the Obama campaign and the idea is that you are getting neighbours talking to neighbours, not over the fence, but over the phone,” he said.
One hundred volunteers, one million phone calls
On any one day, up to 100 volunteers as well as local candidates staff the centre in rotating shifts.
The steady hum of telephone conversations is interspersed with the ring of bells, followed by applause – another Obama touch, where the callers hit a bell every time they find or win a vote for Labor.
“We have a target nationally of making one million phone calls during the campaign,” Mr Clements said. “We are getting close to that.”
It is a quieter but similar story at the Liberal Party headquarters in Sydney’s William Street.
This call centre has been operating since the start of the year, along with one at Parramatta and another on the NSW Central Coast.
“We are calling voters who we believe are still to make up their minds in this election, of which there are a number,” Mark Neeham, NSW Liberal Party director and campaign manager, said.
Each party can tailor the calls according to the age, sex and ethnic profile of the voter.
Parties hope call centres prove a ‘crucial difference’
Labor’s Peter Batchelor, who worked on Obama’s campaign, helped design the Labor centre.
“We’ll have people talking to their own communities,” he said.
“So tonight will have some Mandarin speakers talking to Chinese households (and) we’ll have the Arabic lists as well. Obviously we want everybody to be able to have a conversation about the issues and the strength of this sort of movement is that it’s a cross-section of society.”
Volunteers are constantly updating the party lists with feedback from their calls and hope the data-mining will pay off in Saturday’s poll.
“We can track how many people, how many votes we are changing, on the night,” Mr Clements said.
“We think that it will make a crucial difference in our key seats.”
Topics:
government-and-politics,
elections,
political-parties,
federal-elections,
sydney-2000,
australia,
nsw,
parramatta-2150
First posted
Source Article from http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-09-03/inside-the-call-centres-of-the-major-parties/4932770
Posted in 
