Stimulating A Sunburnt People
- Created by
- Duck and Monkey (Kaitlin Duck Sherwood, Matthew Chudek)
- data.australia.gov.au datasets used
Economic Stimulus Package Project Data (community infrastructure & road & rail projects)
- Other datasets used
- Australian Bureau of Statistics: Census of Population and Housing: Census Geographic Areas Digital Boundaries, Australia, 2006
On 3 Feburary 2009 the Labor Government began implementing its Nation Building Economic Stimulus plan. Our mashup and accompanying textual analysis aggregates data on community infrastructure and rail and road spending at the level of Federal Electoral Divisions.
Users can explore how this spending was allocated by clicking on any area of the map or by changing the point-overlay between all projects and just those valued at over $700,000. The colored overlay shows the number and value of projects in each of Australia’s federal electoral divisions. The intensity of colours represents the level of spending in each area, while the color of the area lets users quickly identify whether the given electorate is currently the seat for a members of the current government party or an opposition party.
Graphics in the map are crisp, relatively fast, and show a level of sophistication and an understanding of load issues beyond most of the other entries in this contest.
HTML interface is acceptable but a bit fiddly to use.
The main issue I had was that the site opens with “Was the spending biased by party political interests?” but does not attempt to answer the question.
Based on that premise I was expected some attempt at statistical correlation, especially as this is not the kind of thing for which a massive and obvious bias would be expected to be visible.
Generally though, full marks for the mapping. It’s not as shiny as some of the others, but the DATA on the map is first rate. (I want your code!)
Check the textual analysis link. I think you will find more statistical analysis than you can shake a stick at!
Whoops, my bad — the detailed one got lost in an update. It’s restored now.