The era of Baby Boomers as the dominant voting force in Australian politics is at an end and the impact will play out at the next federal election, due by May.
If you listen carefully, you can already hear that politicians know the power and numbers have shifted to younger people.
We are already seeing political parties shift demographic focus and it’s something that will differentiate this next election to others in recent times with a noticeable focus on young people.
The 2025 federal election will be the first election where Gen Z and Millennials will outnumber boomers in every state and territory, dramatically changing the way political parties campaign and target voters. This is no small thing. Policy and political announcements designed around the perceived needs of boomers have been at the heart of Australian politics. Changing voter demographics will introduce a seismic shift.
Think about the 2019 campaign that former Labor leader Bill Shorten unexpectedly lost. The anger of boomers on plans for key taxation shifts — from negative gearing to franking credits — that they believed would punish them was partly responsible for the re-election of the Coalition.
Fast forward two electoral terms and those same ideas — particularly when it comes to housing — have different electoral resonance.
Gen Z and Millennials now make up 47 per cent of the electorate. Boomers are around 33 per cent. The Gen Z and Millennial demographic number will be closer to 50 per cent by the time we get to May.
The shift in the demographics of voters is already challenging political parties that need to pivot political campaigns to address the issues that matter to younger voters.
Influencers not advertisers
Political analysts say Millennials and Gen Z are two demographic groups that do not consume free-to-air media and traditional media platforms like boomers. The younger demographic is also the most sceptical about political advertising.
Some believe political parties in Australia have not yet adjusted to this new environment the way the Trump campaign did successfully in the United States. Trump’s campaign spent less money than the Harris campaign but targeted younger people on social media platforms and on the podcasts they consumed.
The new political advertising needs to be about influencers, not advertisers.
We are already seeing it with HECS HELP relief changes and the new political focus on housing affordability.
That’s all a sign of the growing political power of Millennials and Gen Z.
Pollsters are watching for volatile voters
And with some signs that younger men are trending towards more conservative political views, the way to capture their votes is under active discussion in Canberra.
In inner urban and middle urban areas, Gen Z and Millennials may vote more for progressive and left leaning polities but his group is a massive disruptor in the outer urban areas and in the regions.
In these areas Gen Z and Millenials harbour no party loyalty and provide a level of political volatility that is testing the major parties.
Pollsters believe the biggest disruptors will be young people without a university degree, who are viewed as significantly volatile voters in the outer suburbs and regions.
This group, pollsters believe, is the most likely to be attracted to anything they may perceive as the system having failed them, and then vote to bring that system down.
Young male voters are trending towards more conservative voting as they did in the recent US election. (ABC News: Bradley McLennan)
Think about what happened in the once-safe Labor seat of Fowler at the last election where the electorate swung behind independent Dai Le and rejected the sitting Labor candidate, former NSW Premier Kristina Keneally. Labor had held the seat since 1984.
Respected pollster and former Labor strategist Kos Samaras who runs the Redbridge polling firm has warned the generational shift will be a game changer at this election and the major parties are slow to engage with that change.
“All the major political parties are preparing to run campaigns heavily reliant on traditional media and communication platforms, that are increasingly obsolete when it comes to engaging an emerging generation of voters,” he told this column.
All parties should slash their free-to-air TV advertising budgets and focus on fully capturing digital first platforms, he believes.
“Younger voters, particularly Gen Z and Millennials, consume media in vastly different ways compared to previous generations,” he said. “They are more likely to rely on digital-first platforms like social media, podcasts, and streaming services, while shunning legacy media such as television and radio.”
Truth bombs and political time bombs
While we’ve already seen policy pivots from both sides of politics that are designed to capture the younger cohorts of voters who will have the ultimate sway over the election, there were some truth bombs about this demographic political time bomb delivered by former Labor leader and now services minister Shorten in his final speech to parliament.
Shorten said young Australians “carry a disproportionate share of the tax burden” under current legislation and reflected on what he believes needs to change.
He warned young Australians face increasing economic and housing inequality unless political leaders reach a bipartisan position on reforming the tax system.
Shorten nominated tax reform, climate change, housing, defence and foreign policy, constitutional recognition for Indigenous Australians and gender equality as “unfinished business” for federal politicians.
Addressing climate change is an important issue for many young voters. (ABC News: Tim Swanston)
But one of the policies that voters previously rejected was reforming negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount used by property investors to help homebuyers.
While Shorten acknowledged the government this year had created fairer income tax cuts, he argued property was still taxed preferentially and lightly, while income was still taxed too heavily.
“As a result, young Australians carry a disproportionate share of the burden,” he said.
“Not only do they pay more tax than a generation ago. They pay more for their education than ever before … and it is harder than ever for young Australians to save for a first home.
“We must not become a society where the best predictor of owning a home in the future is the bank balance of your parents now.”
Leaving parliament is freeing for politicians who no longer have to toe the political line.
Shorten’s final intervention throws a giant log on the fire to reignite passion in his own ranks about who and what his party should be fighting for.
Tax and education are key battlegrounds
Sydney MP Allegra Spender, a key crossbench figure, danced to the same tune last week vowing to use a hung parliament after the next election to drive tax reform, arguing the system is hurting young people to the point they are giving up on having families and unable to buy a home.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers has admitted young Australians faced the brunt of the challenges of the past few years.
Spender argues the tax system, and concessions such as negative gearing, were partly to blame for the collapse in birth rate and the dramatic fall in home ownership among those in their 20s and 30s.
Education and training are also new battlegrounds
Nearly three million Australians have HECS-HELP loans that have risen in dramatic ways in recent years.
Earlier this month the Albanese government announced a series of reforms to higher education that include wiping 20 per cent off all student loan debts by 1 June 2025, if his government is re-elected. This is all with the generational prize of votes in mind.
Labor also plans to raise the income threshold necessary before students start paying back their degrees, with the country’s total Higher Education Loan Program (HELP) debt sitting at $81 billion at the end of 2023-24.
As MPs head into their final sitting week for the year, the government hopes to extend fee-free TAFE places to 100,000 people each year from 2027.
David Talbot, the director of Talbot Mills Research, said there are early signs the Labor government’s plan to reduce graduates HECS/HELP debt by 20 per cent has been well received by younger voters.
“18-30 year olds back the idea with 77 per cent support,” he said.
An impressive 74 per cent of Millennials in the 30-44-year-old cohort said they too support the government’s proposal,” Talbot told this column.
Even amongst Coalition voters the policy has nearly 60 per cent support.
Talbot said student debt is a potent issue: ” it’s one of the few policy initiatives to have real cut through in recent months”.
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A tipping point has been reached
It’s easy to see how these policies are framed around an election message which will be squarely focused on younger voters.
The shadow assistant minister for home ownership, New South Wales Liberal frontbench senator Andrew Bragg, spoke to this column and said policies around housing were the main focus to address the intergenerational housing inequity.
“We know that too many Millennials and Gen Zs are on a trajectory to never own a home,” he said. “That’s why we are opening up super for first home buyers and looking at lending rules for this group. We have to find practical ways to tilt the scales for first home buyers.”
Bragg said Labor has spent billions on failed bureaucracy. “Our housing policies will be practical,” he said.
And if you analyse what the research suggests, this is no surprise.
According to the 2024 Australian Youth Barometer, which surveyed more than 600 Australians aged 18-24 and interviewed 30 more, anxiety, pessimism and insecurity are common feelings among young people at the moment. Their top three concerns are housing affordability, employment and climate change.
And disturbingly only half of those surveyed think it is likely they will achieve financial security in the future and 62 per cent think they will be financially worse off than their parents.
The old adage “it’s the economy, stupid” used to explain voter behaviour could now also include, “it’s demography, stupid”.
The intergenerational divide has long been known and established. Now we’ve reached an electoral tipping point.
Patricia Karvelas is the presenter of RN Breakfast and co-host of the Party Room podcast. She also hosts Q+A on ABC TV Mondays at 9.35pm.
