The Abbott government is using a research company to trawl through millions of Australian social media posts to advise it on its immigration policies.

The scrutiny of Twitter, Facebook and blogs is part of $4.3 million worth of research contracts commissioned by the federal government in its first five months of office.

"This expenditure is another example of the Abbott government's distorted priorities": Penny Wong. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

Cubit Media Research has two contracts with the Department of Immigration and Border Protection to deliver ''media positioning analysis''.

Founder and chief executive Warren Weeks said it could track 24 million social media ''pieces'' an hour, to gauge Australians' perceptions of different policy areas. ''People hire Cubit and people like us because we have the capacity to monitor millions of pieces a day,'' he said. ''What's the mood? What's the tone?''