Liberals suffered crush defeat after ignoring Generation Z and Millennial voters at 2025 election

The Australian

09-05-2025

For millennials the social contract has been fundamentally broken.
The agreement, we were told, was that if you got an education and worked hard, you'd be duly rewarded with the trappings of adulthood. You'd get a home, a salary that would modestly increase, and you'd live a comfortable, if not lavish, life.
This had been the case for every previous generation, why wouldn't it work for us?
So we did what was advised – we studied, took on HECS debts, joined the workforce and saved diligently for a home deposit. But by the time we accrued what should've been enough money, the market had bolted. Home ownership was out of the question for many. So then we were consigned to be a generation of renters. Perhaps that might have been okay, but the market is hostile and favours landlords. Leases are short, protections few and yearly rent increases standard.
Things weren't great, but they got infinitely worse when the rental crisis hit. More and more of our salary went towards cramped apartments and leaky terraces. In most capital cities, it is hard to live alone on one salary. There are many people in their 30s and 40s who are forced to live with housemates, perhaps forever. This really didn't look like the adulthood we were promised. At all.
Then inflation happened. Life became more expensive and it seemed the only thing not going up were salaries. We were told to cut costs, but how? Sure, cancelling Netflix saves $20 a month, but the medium weekly price for a one-bedroom rental in Sydney is around $700. What levers are there to pull when keeping a roof over your head accounts for much of your outgoing costs?
A large swath of my generation sits in simmering resentment. We were sold a lie and then branded as lazy when we complained. Perhaps that rhetoric worked when we were in our 20s. But now we're in, or approaching, middle age and we keep falling behind the rest of Australia.
So we look to our politicians to see how this inequality might be addressed. In its first term Labor did little to improve the situation. Impressively, the Liberal Party managed to make itself an even worse prospect.
In the weeks leading up to the election, Peter Dutton made a bold commitment to fire many public servants and put an end to working from home for the rest. Predictably, this policy was interpreted as a political dogwhistle and a broader attack on flexible work arrangements.
The backlash was quick and inevitable. Rather than talking about the Coalition's policies, Dutton instead had to spend time gently reversing his previously hardline stance. There would be some exceptions to the forced office return. Did I say all of the public service? I meant just the ones in Canberra. Then finally an embarrassing and complete backdown – no changes to flexible work and no mass firings.
But it was too late. He'd waved a lit torch over the short fuse of millennials and Generation Z and the damage had been done. Of course we were angry. We got the education, got the jobs, worked hard, but have found the same middle-class existence that our parents enjoyed is unattainable. Why, then, would we also sacrifice time with our families for long commutes and stuffy offices? To appease the belief that work only counts if it is both drudgery and witnessed by another?
Imagine, for a moment, that Dutton had introduced a policy that was the exact opposite. A plan to incentivise flexible working would have been popular, and given people a way to move out of crowded and expensive cities. People could have had better lifestyles, cheaper living, and Australia would enjoy a revitalisation of their regional towns.
But instead we were offered a year of marginally cheaper petrol.
But perhaps what was most staggering about the work-from-home debacle, was watching the Liberal Party stumble into the same beartrap it had only just freed itself from.
Having spent the past three years trying to reverse its perceived problem with women, it then attacked a working arrangement particularly favoured by young mothers.
When this was pointed out, job sharing was touted as a solution. As though forcing women to cut their salary during an affordability crisis was going to quell the outrage.
Seemingly, Dutton was unaware of how deep the generational rifts run. If what's left of the Liberal Party would like to see office again, it would do well to not drop into this chasm again.
Housing insecurity and wage stagnation is an existential crisis affecting many of the eight million voting Australians under the age of 45. But the solutions touted by the Liberal Party were fuzzy and weak. Renters didn't even warrant a mention.
For the first time in Australia's history, there were more millennial and Generation Z voters than baby boomers at the election. The nation has just witnessed this newly formed cohort passing its judgment on the Liberal Party. The results couldn't be clearer.
Policies and rhetoric that have resonated with previous generations won't work with this new crop. Why would they? Younger generations are less likely to have assets to protect, or homes they want to see increase in value.
If the Liberal Party wants to win these people back it needs to address these problems and offer some hope. Some novel ideas. A bloody way forward. Or at the very least, it should learn to read the room.
Stephanie Coombes is a Sydney-based writer. Read related topics: Peter Dutton