New online and social media analysis from Meltwater reveals what Australians were talking about on Federal Budget night.

News and social media insights company Meltwater analysed conversations that took place pre- and post-Federal Budget in the news and on social to uncover the topics and issues that were most important to the media and public.

On social media, housing was the number one topic of discussion, with 25.9% of social share-of-voice (SOV).

This was closely followed by health, with 24.5% SOV.

Online, the spread was more even, with infrastructure being the most talked about (18.65% SOV) followed by health (17.4%) and education (14.23%).

When it comes to the sentiment around these conversations, there was plenty of negativity. The Coalition’s crackdown on welfare payments for job seekers who miss Centrelink appointments and the commencement of a new drug testing trial for welfare recipients was very contentious.

Conversations regarding Centrelink measures were 56.8% negative online and 75% negative on social.

Cuts to university funding, increases in student fees over the next four years and earlier repayments on student debt also garnered predominantly neutral or negative sentiment both online (56% neutral, 38% negative and 6% positive) and on social (57% neutral, 28% negative and 15% positive).

The topic with the most negative sentiment was infrastructure, with 70.4% negative sentiment, 19.3% neutral and 10.4% positive on social media.

The topic with the most positive on social was superannuation, with 22.8% positive, 26.9% negative and 50.3% neutral sentiment.

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