The idea was simple enough. Put the prime minister in front of a camera, stream the broadcast online and let the Australian community pose questions to her. Democracy at its finest... right?
Theoretically, yes. Giving regular Australians easy access to their elected leader should be what a democracy is all about. But somewhere in the pursuit of this noble idea, something went wrong. Questions were vetted, answers were spun, and by the end of the hour long Google Hangout session, the Prime Minister had done little to change her fleeting public image.
YouTube viewers voted with their clicks. By the end of the broadcast - which only had four likes before its 11am start - viewers reviewed the video 458 dislikes to 219 likes.
As one YouTube commenter put it straight after the broadcast's completion: "it was with good intentions but it didn't work".
So what happened? Here's all the fallout from the hangout.
To read the rest of this article, click here.
