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December 6, 2025
There are a handful of weeks each year when Parliament House becomes an arena for one of the nation's great endurance sports. Senators slump in office chairs, wearily listening to their colleagues from across the political spectrum question public servants and ministers late into the night.
But among the 14-hour days and grating voices of political enemies, there are moments of political theatre that MPs have learnt can be spun into social media gold.
Sittings of Senate legislation committees, more commonly referred to as Senate estimates, were formalised in the Australian political system in the 1970s. But it's only in the last term of government that the often banal question-and-answer sessions have been supercharged for their ability to show politicians in action.
In the final sitting of the year, Independent senator David Pocock gained 5000 followers on Instagram from a series of viral videos clipped from the proceedings. One in which Pocock questioned Industry Minister Tim Ayres about Japan's on-selling of Australian gas garnered more than 930,000 views on Instagram in three days.
The ACT, which Pocock represents, had a population of 454,000 at the last census.
Pocock's office said in the past week that 80 per cent of views on Instagram came from non-followers, and the ''skip rate'' of posts had dropped by 14 percentage points.
The videos posted by MPs are clipped from sprawling sessions of Senate legislation committees, and range in theme from humorous interactions to rebukes of the government or public servants.
Greens senator David Shoebridge, whose videos from estimates regularly rake in upwards of 500,000 views across platforms, said his followers are begging for longer videos to be uploaded to YouTube.
''Senate estimates is one of the few places we can pierce the veil of secrecy, and Australians are desperate to see what their government is hiding,'' he said.
''When we post our questions online, whistleblowers and insiders come forward with more information that helps us dig deeper. When that works, and the public tells us what they want asked, that's accountability in action.''
In the past week, opposition finance spokesman James Paterson published 16 estimates clips to YouTube. His daily viewership jumped from 19,000 views to 104,000 between Sunday and Tuesday, and new subscribers per day increased by almost 800 per cent in the same period.
''Estimates goes off on social media because it allows the public to peek behind the curtain and see senior politicians and some of our highest-paid public servants in action. Unfortunately, they are often dismayed by what they see,'' Paterson said.
''I have literally been stopped in the street and asked why senior officials so often take questions on notice, and why they appear so evasive when asked straightforward questions.''
Australian politicians appeared to be mimicking US counterparts in a ''cringey and ham-fisted'' attempt to garner a following, political strategist Ed Coper from campaign agency Populares said. ''This has really only taken off in this term of parliament. There's been a few efforts in the previous one that didn't particularly go anywhere, but this has been a feature of American politics for a number of years,'' Coper, who has worked with teal independent and Labor campaigns, said.
''Having an inquisitor looking down on a subject who's been hauled before an inquiry to answer for some indiscretion or to explain some controversy or some scandal, that makes it really well suited for this kind of conflict bait, which does really well on social media.''
The inquiries appear to have morphed from an opportunity to question a government's decision making to a piece of political theatre, former departmental division head Allan Behm said.
''I never found it to be a combative place, unless you tried to be a smartarse or unless you were insulting to the senators, and then the people questioning you would get angry,'' said Behm, who held a number of high-profile positions in defence and the attorney-general's department between 1983 and 2001, and regularly appeared before estimates in those roles.
Behm, now an advisor in international and security affairs at the Australia Institute, said the change was an inevitability that reflected a growing move towards secrecy from government, combined with the uptake of social media. ''I think what would be good is if the people who were using [social media] were much, much more clever and much more adroit in the way they did use it,'' he said.
The format favours non-government MPs, who take an inquisitory role as they investigate government decision-making. However, government MPs occasionally cut through during inquiries of external figures. House committees, the lower house's version of estimates, have also generated viral content.
A video of Labor MP Jerome Laxale grilling Commonwealth Bank CEO Matt Comyn on card transaction fees last year received more than 1 million views.
Liberal senator Sarah Henderson, a former broadcaster, said the new way of politicians communicating with the public ''feels like it's back to the future''. ''Senate estimates is a very important part of our democracy ... to the extent that we're able to show Australians our work in the Senate, I think it's very valuable,'' she said.