Take the Tony Abbott 'before or after' quiz

A data-driven analysis of more than 200,000 words Tony Abbott spoke in the 12 months before and the 12 months after the federal election has identified which subjects were more dominant in each period. Take our quiz to find out more.

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Results breakdown

Tony Abbott's language has shifted in multiple ways since the election: for example, issues related to foreign affairs are much more prominent, a natural shift for an incoming prime minister.

On the domestic front, the dataset suggests a number of concepts - such as infrastructure, debt and repeals - have loomed larger in Mr Abbott's speech since the election, while others - universities, Indigenous and asylum seekers boats - have faded to varying degrees.

What is this data based on?

The ABC captured Tony Abbott's statements in Parliament and in formal speeches for the 12 months before the federal election and the 12 months after the election - and used a piece of software to automatically identify and track the key concepts being discussed.

The parliamentary dataset came from Open Australia, while the speeches were taken from those published on the official Liberal Party site.

In total, 236,216 words were analysed using a text analysis engine called Leximancer, which automatically identifies the high-level concepts used in large amounts of text.

Carbon tax

The carbon tax stands out clearly in the dataset: Mr Abbott talks about it far more than any other topic aside from the extremely broad concept of 'government'.

Overall, Mr Abbott has spoken about the carbon tax fairly evenly before and after the election, though with a slight lean towards the pre-election period.

"[The Coalition] fanned the flames of discontent around this issue and when they came to power spent much effort in pushing through repeal legislation, explaining the even prominence of the concept pre and post-election," said Dr Daniel Angus, a University of Queensland researcher who specialises in text analytics and assisted with the analysis.

"We want to save the average household money; that is why we want to terminate the carbon tax." - speaking in Parliament, July 14, 2014

Trade

Discussions of global trade were rare in Mr Abbott's public speech before the election, but have become much more prominent since he became Prime Minister and sealed free trade agreements with Japan and Korea.

"Tony Abbott began to focus on issues of international trade once he found power, something largely left out of speeches in the lead up to the election - which is understandable as his campaign focused on domestic issues," Dr Angus said.

This represents a broader natural shift in Mr Abbott's focus: concepts such as "China", "global", "G20" and "international" are among those most strongly associated with the speeches he has delivered since becoming PM.

"We have negotiated two free trade agreements, with Korea and Japan; that means more exports." - speaking in Parliament, June 3, 2014

Asylum seeker boats

Mr Abbott's refrain that he would "stop the boats" was one of the Coalition's key promises in the lead-up to the election, and led to the launch of Operation Sovereign Borders immediately afterwards.

The subject remains a strong concept in his speech since the election, although not as dominant as the period before that.

Some of that reduction is most likely explained by Immigration Minister Scott Morrison fronting much of the Coalition's response to the asylum seekers issue since the election.

"If the US Coast Guard can turn boats around, why can't the Australian Navy?" - speaking in Parliament, June 25, 2013 "We said we would stop the boats, and they are stopping." - speaking in Parliament, November 13, 2013

Indigenous affairs

Indigenous people and related policies were a recurring theme for Mr Abbott before the election, but "have become less prominent in his speeches" since the Coalition took power, Dr Angus says.

It is worth noting that the 12-month post-election period analysed does not include Mr Abbott's trip to Indigenous communities this week.

"Should the Coalition win the election, Aboriginal people will be at the heart of a new government, in word and in deed." - speaking at the Sydney Institute, March 15, 2013 "Australians are now as proud of our indigenous heritage as we are of all our other traditions." - speaking in Parliament, February 12, 2014

Infrastructure

Before the election, Tony Abbott promised to be an "infrastructure prime minister" and if his words are anything to go by, he has been.

"Since coming to power Tony Abbott has made numerous announcements of large investments in infrastructure, largely related to roads," Dr Angus said.

"Building the roads of the 21st century will be a massive boost to productivity, because people will not be stuck in traffic jams." - speaking in Parliament, June 2, 2014

Taxes

This concept refers to "the entire system of revenue generation for the government," Dr Angus explains, and it has been high on Mr Abbott's agenda both before and after the election.

"Both pre and post-election, Tony Abbott has driven a typical neo-liberal agenda that taxes should be low," Dr Angus said.

"Everything that government does has to be paid for either by today's taxes or tomorrow's taxes – with interest." - speaking to the Sydney Institute, April 28, 2014

Universities

The higher education sector has come in for plenty of attention since the Coalition came to power, with the Government unveiling plans to uncap university fees, change the interest rate on student loans and lower the income threshold at which people have to begin repaying their debt.

However, the data suggests the Prime Minister's voice has not been as prominent in the debate since the election.

"Tony Abbott made mention of universities and their value to society pre-election, however has gone largely quiet on this issue since coming to power," Dr Angus said.

"Some of this change may be because comment on this issue has been left to frontbenchers Christopher Pyne and Ian Macfarlane."

"If we have to change it, we will consult beforehand rather than impose it unilaterally and argue about it afterwards. We understand the value of stability and certainty, even to universities." - speaking at a conference, February 28, 2013

Repeals

Having spent its time in Opposition attacking Labor's agenda, once in power the Coalition turned its attention to unpicking the former government's legislative changes. This prompted a rise in Mr Abbott's discussion of repeals.

After fierce negotiation, the Abbott Government has now successfully passed legislation to repeal both the carbon tax and the mining tax.

"We will have parliamentary sitting days dedicated to repealing laws, not passing them." - speaking in Parliament, May 16, 2013 "The coalition went to the election promising to repeal the carbon tax, and I am proud to be able to say in this House that we are keeping faith with the mandate that we sought from the people." - speaking in Parliament, November 21, 2013

Infrastructure

Having promised to be an "infrastructure prime minister", Tony Abbott has certainly given the subject plenty of attention since taking office.

"Since coming to power Tony Abbott has made numerous announcements of large investments in infrastructure, largely related to roads," Dr Angus said.

"We are embarked on the biggest infrastructure spend in the Commonwealth's history – $50 billion of new infrastructure spending as a result of this Budget." - speaking at an LNP conference, July 12, 2014 "We are cracking on with building the roads that Labor neglected." - speaking in Parliament, May 29, 2014

'Standing orders'

Before the 2013 election, Mr Abbott's efforts to suspend standing orders became a daily ritual in Parliament - effectively shutting down parliamentary Question Time and instead turning it into a platform for his criticism of the Labor government.

Standing orders are the rules used to manage the workings of Parliament.

"Now that they find themselves in power, it is understandable that [the Coalition] would not want to see standing orders suspended, and thus these words have largely left their lexicon," Dr Angus said.

"Standing orders must be suspended to enable this matter to be discussed forthwith, because not only does the coalition have no confidence in this Prime Minister but, plainly, senior members of her own government no longer have confidence in this Prime Minister." - speaking in Parliament, June 26, 2013

Jobs

Tony Abbott pledged to create 1 million jobs in five years and 2 million in a decade: the data suggests jobs have remained just as prominent in his speeches after taking power.

"Job creation is something that all politicians love to announce," Dr Angus said, "and both pre and post-election Tony Abbott has used speeches to tell the Australian public how his government plans to create more jobs."

"In the second line of this week's budget speech, the Treasurer said it was a budget for jobs and growth." speaking in Parliament, May 16, 2013

Surplus

Surplus comes across as a stronger theme from Mr Abbott's parliamentary comments before the election.

"This concept is all about budget deficit and surplus and the Liberal opposition using Question Time to attack the Labor government over its timing of bringing the budget back to surplus - and making its own promises for when it proposed it would achieve surplus if it found itself in power,"

"Labor used to think that a surplus was important. As soon as they moved into opposition, they thought that a surplus was unimportant." - speaking in Parliament, July 17, 2014

Budget

The federal budget has featured about equally in Mr Abbott's speeches before and after the election.

Before the election, much of the discussion was about the budget being in disarray. Since then, Dr Angus says the concepts of 'fixing' something and taking 'control' are tightly connected to 'budget' in Mr Abbott's speeches.

"We'll get the budget back under control by ending Labor's waste." - speaking at the Coalition campaign launch, August 25, 2013

Debt

The analysis shows debt has played a larger role in Mr Abbott's parliamentary performances since last year's election than it did beforehand. The analysis also suggests that in the post-election period, the concept of debt is very closely linked to 'disaster', 'Labor' and 'deficit'.

"The Opposition was relentless in its framing of the Labor government as poor economic managers," Dr Angus said.

"Once the Liberal Party came to power they switched tack and began a comprehensive campaign aimed to convince the Australian public that the country faced a 'debt disaster'."

"They gave us the six biggest deficits in Australia's history. They gave us debt and deficit stretching out as far as the eye can see—$123 billion of further deficits, $667 billion of projected debt—and they thought they had delivered four surpluses." - speaking in Parliament, June 23, 2014

Co-payments

The Government unveiled plans to introduce a $7 co-payment to see bulk-billing doctors in this year's budget - though the change has not won parliamentary approval.

As a result, the co-payment concept appears much more strongly in Mr Abbott's language since the election.

Notes

Methodology

The ABC captured Tony Abbott's statements in Parliament and in formal speeches for the 12 months before the federal election and the 12 months after the election - and used a piece of software to automatically identify and track the key concepts being discussed.

The parliamentary dataset came from Open Australia, while the speeches were taken from those published on the official Liberal Party site.

In total, 236,216 words were analysed using a text analysis engine called Leximancer, which automatically identifies the high-level concepts used in large amounts of text.

University of Queensland text analytics researcher Dr Daniel Angus, who specialises in examining 'big text', assisted with the analysis of Mr Abbott's language.

In consultation with Dr Angus, the ABC selected a series of the concepts identified by Leximancer to explore and discuss in further detail.

Confused about your score?

For the purposes of scoring the quiz, each concept is weighted according to how strongly its usage is associated with the period of time before or after the election.

This means that if you answered only a single question incorrectly (13/14), your quiz score could vary depending on which question you got wrong.

For example, if the question you answered incorrectly was the one regarding 'standing orders' (a concept strongly associated with the pre-election period) your score will have been affected quite negatively. However, if the question you answered incorrectly was the one regarding 'carbon tax', your score would still have been negatively affected, but much less severely because 'carbon tax' is strongly associated with both before and after the election.