It has been used more than half a million times during the 2016 campaign and features prominently in ABC news coverage of the federal election. Labor's national secretary George Wright. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen And while it is usually the Coalition that has public stoushes with the ABC, Labor believes the site seriously misleads voters over key policy positions and unfairly directs voters to support the Greens or the Coalition. On penalty rates, for example, the website states that Labor only "somewhat agrees" with the proposition that "People who work on a Sunday should get paid more than people who work on a Saturday" whereas the Greens are said to "strongly agree" with the statement. This is despite Opposition Leader Bill Shorten's repeatedly arguing in favour of the current Sunday penalty rates arrangements and promising, if elected, Labor would make a further submission to the Fair Work Commission to defend Sunday penalty rates.

And on the statement: "Boats carrying asylum seekers should be turned back", the website states that Labor "somewhat agrees" with this position, whereas the Coalition "strongly agrees" with it. Opposition Leader Bill Shorten. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen While Labor MPs and candidates have flagged their opposition to boat turn-backs, Labor formally adopted this policy position at its 2015 conference and Mr Shorten has clearly said the party's position is to support turn-backs if elected. The ALP's objections to the Vote Compass decisions underscores the party's sensitivity over penalty rates and asylum seekers. Michelle Guthrie became the first female managing director of the ABC in 2016.

On same-sex marriage, Vote Compass has backed down and changed its position. The website originally stated Labor "somewhat disagrees" with the proposition that "Marriage should only be between a man and a woman". But, like the Greens, it now states that Labor "strongly disagrees" with this proposition. In the letter to Ms Guthrie, Mr Wright states that "despite repeated efforts to resolve these concerns, we believe Vote Compass continues to misrepresent Labor policy". "In our view this seriously undermines the integrity of Vote Compass and is completely unacceptable," he said.

Labor's policy position had been decided at the party's national conference, in the caucus and in the shadow cabinet and "the deliberations of your advisory board are no substitute for the democratic processes of the ALP". "The ALP's interaction with Vote Compass has been very disappointing and, in our view, falls far short of the high standards of our national broadcaster." Vote Compass is owned and was created by Canadian company Vox Pop Labs. For the Australian election it partners with a Melbourne University academic advisory board to determine party positions on major policy issues. It then works directly with each party to determine the accuracy of its policy decisions and, as the website notes, "all parties are provided with an opportunity to review and, if necessary, challenge the calibrations before Vote Compass is launched". Labor has been arguing for weeks with Vote Compass founder Clifton Van Der Linden over the inaccuracies in the site's determination of its policy positions.

A spokesman for the ABC confirmed it had received the letter from Mr Wright and said the ABC would "respond in due course". "The ABC regards Vote Compass as a valuable platform for informing the public about election policies. It is set up independently of ABC News and uses an academic panel to receive input from the parties on their policies and to place them within a broader policy context." Fairfax Media will be launching a similar tool, YourVote, during the 2016 election campaign and has offered the major parties the opportunity to respond to the system's coding. Follow James Massola on Facebook Follow us on Twitter