The Gillard government has a communications conundrum that transcends the media focus on Craig Thomson, or the travails of minority government, or even the Prime Minister's disapproval rating.
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It is how to connect with part-time working mothers, who were the big winners in last month's budget, but don't know it - and are far more interested in Facebook than consuming traditional media.
The Labor Party is about to launch a campaign aimed at reaching women who spend an average of two hours a day on Facebook, but seldom read newspapers and have no interest in watching Parliament.
The campaign is based on research showing that young mothers are the biggest users of Facebook after students, with 78 per cent logging in each day and just 19 per cent reading a newspaper. One in five of these women logs into Facebook first thing in the morning, while almost one in five checks her page before going to bed.
Although they stand to be around $3000 a year better off, thanks to an increase in the tax-free threshold, the School Kids' Bonus, additional family payments and a bigger childcare rebate, party research suggests most are unaware of it.
The scale of the task was underscored in last month's Age/Nielsen Poll, which found 41 per cent of women voters felt they would be worse off because of the budget, 22 per cent said it would make no difference, and just 27 per cent thought they would be better off.
ALP national secretary George Wright told Fairfax yesterday, ''There is just a low level of information with this group, and when you start to tell a story about these things in their totality, they respond very strongly to it.
''It's less about budget bounces and more about establishing a conversation with these families about what we are doing, why we are doing it, who we are doing it for and how they will benefit.
''We've just got to communicate that story - and we have to go around the media to do it. That's the truth of it. We have to find a more direct way of communicating with voters.
''That's not a criticism of the media, who are rightly following issues of national importance - but they're not necessarily things that impact directly on the lives of these voters.''
Labor MPs left Canberra with instructions to use social media to spread their message and flyers targeting working mothers and attempting to counter the perception that the government is keen to wage a class war.
After detailing benefits, one of the pamphlets concludes: ''We know it's not everything, but we will continue to work for ALL Australians during these times of global change.''
Radio advertisements to begin tomorrow focus on the School Kids' Bonus of $410 for each primary student and $810 for each secondary student, stressing that no receipts are necessary.
They conclude, ''You work hard enough as it is.''