You may have read a couple of headlines overnight that the federal government invited a group of content creators for the first time to head to Canberra to report on the 2025-2026 federal budget. So we thought – why not give a recap on how this opportunity came about, and what our trip has looked like?
An email arrived in our inboxes two weeks ago from the government inviting us into the budget lockup – and we jumped at the chance to be part of such an amazing event in Australian politics, and to report on the budget for our readers, who are primarily young women aged 18-35 around Australia.
Our articles, podcast and social media content currently reaches a combined audience of over 3M people – a statistic we’re proud of and also a responsibility we take seriously.
Day 1
We got the Murrays bus to Canberra (#startuplife) and arrived on Tuesday morning, checked into our apartment then headed to Parliament House where we met the comms advisors who support both the Minister for Women, and the Prime Minister.
We met with our group who had been invited down – a mix of content creators, podcasters, and reps from independent newsrooms, and received a briefing about what we should expect during the budget lockup process [essentially where media are locked in a room with the budget papers – without phones or wifi].
We then headed upstairs to the budget lockup area and “surrendered” our phones at around 3:30pm. We were led to a room with a bunch of journos and creators and were “locked up” with the budget papers (along with the snacks which we had brought!). The press gallery had kicked off lock-up at around 1pm, so we joined a little later.
In the room, you essentially get a hard copy briefing, then a USB stick that you can use to review all the federal budget relevant docs on your laptop – including the Treasurer’s speech, the women’s budget statement and the budget papers. The purpose of this is to provide media content creators – from “old school” journalists to up-and-coming content creators – with an opportunity to scrutinise the budget and ask questions on behalf of Australian citizens who are directly affected by the budget priorities. There are monitors walking around who check what’s happening on your laptops and confirming that you’re not connected to wifi, etc.
Around an hour in, we were led to a press conference with the Treasurer and the Minister for Women and Finance, who gave an overview of the budget and what they see as the key takeaways. This was an opportunity to see the press gallery in action, and hear what they saw as the key issues and points of contention.
After, we were led back into our lock-up room for another two hours, where we finalised our reporting and got to interview the Minister for Women – and also chat to a few advisors who were able to answer any questions we had about various funding announcements and measures. We then all went to watch the budget speech in a separate room over pizza – where we finally got internet (yay) and our content went live.
Day 2
The next day we headed back to Parliament where we sat through briefings with Ministers including the Minister for Housing, Minister for Climate Change and Energy, and Minister for Foreign Affairs – where they ran us through their policies and key ‘moments’ for their relevant Departments in the budget. We had the opportunity to ask them questions – both on and off the record.
Our thoughts
Reflecting on the last two days, it’s been an incredible experience to be able to enter the budget lock-up, which has been a very exclusive event largely reserved for traditional media – and be able to report on this for our readers, who are mainly young women. It’s particularly important when women’s health was a huge feature of this budget, and also that young women will be a huge voting bloc in the upcoming election. If anything – more people should have access to the budget and the tools to properly analyse it – and MP readers, you can check out the full 2025-26 budget here.
But it definitely raises some interesting questions. It goes without saying that it’s really important that any media (creators, influencers or journalists) invited continue to be really transparent about whether they accepted payment, flights or accommodation paid for etc. Missing Perspectives is a newsroom – and because of that, we prioritise editorial independence and have a policy of declining any paid accommodation or transport for political coverage.
Further, while the rise in creator-led content democratises storytelling, admittedly there is still work to be done in identifying how content creators play that role responsibly. Journalists have had decades to iterate their code of ethics. Content creators looking to build audiences on newer platforms like Instagram are still working out how best to perform this emerging role.
The 2024 Digital News report found that the gender gap in news interest between Gen Z men and women is widening. It showed young female engagement with mainstream media is declining, mostly because of a perception that traditional news does not cater to their demographic. News audiences are also seeking more diverse perspectives on topics in the news. You may think an Instagram Reel lacks substance (we don’t – as we know the thought, care and scripting that goes into doing them well) – but the reality is, if a Gen Z woman isn’t flicking open a print newspaper to read about how the federal budget is going to affect her life – then it’s vital to provide a realistic entry point to that discussion.
The report found that only 23% of Gen Z women say they are very interested in news, compared to 47% of Gen Z men. In terms of why this may be the case, researchers say that young women are more likely to feel underrepresented in the news, and that their issues are not given adequate airtime, which links to both how much they trust and engage with traditional news media.
@leeshiev Let’s talk about the Australian federal budget and new media, content creators and influencers. ps Declined any travel and accomodation expenses being paid for by the government #budget #budget2025 #media #journalist #contentcreator ♬ Aesthetic – Tollan Kim
For our editorial lead, Alicia Vrajlal, who has also seen the other side working in traditional media in the past (Editor at HuffPost) having women of colour at the table is so important. Sitting in the main press conference with Treasurer Jim Chalmers and Minister for Women and Finance, Katy Gallagher, it was clear that there were relatively less women of colour who had a chance to ask a question. As of June 2023, 30.7 per cent of Australia’s population was born overseas. Gen Z – whose sweeping demographic power will have more and more importance when it comes to policy-making – is the most racially and culturally diverse generation yet. So, if engaging new media and creators means that there is a greater diversity of voices in the room, then that’s surely a good thing.
Heading to Canberra was a joyful, fun experience for our team – as this cheeky reel of ours here shows. Ministers and these political spaces have traditionally been hard to access, particularly for new and youth media, so Missing Perspectives’ invitation to attend was a welcome one. The binary of traditional versus new media has the risk of trapping us in a fairly stale debate – we think that bringing the best both worlds have to offer is the path to guaranteeing the best outcomes when it comes to robust, original election coverage. As to whether or not content creators can operate like journalists – they already do. The question is what set of ethics, values and approach we collectively want to bring to this new world, as this in turn will drive what kind of society that we all get to live in.
