Gen Z, millennials outnumbered boomers at ballot box and it mattered

News.com.au

04-05-2025

Adam Bandt was on to something when he popped on the headphones to DJ in front of 500 attendees at the iconic Melbourne live music venue The Night Cat in March.
He cited Charlie XCX and Billie Eilish among artists on rotation at the 53-year-old's Flemington home.
Was it one of the cringiest moments of the election campaign? Sure. But it was also a commendable strategic play to capitalise on the first election where millennials and Gen Z outnumber baby boomers at the ballot box.
See also Anthony Albanese's podcast interview-of-sorts with influencer and ex-Bachelor contestant Abbie Chatfield.
Both party leaders were leaning in to the youth of Australia — voters whose concerns about the cost of living, women's health, HECS and the environment don't necessarily match up with the generation of voters that came before them.
'There are also problems of generational change,' said Dr Rob Hoffman, a lecturer in politics at Swinburne University in Melbourne, when speaking to news.com.au last week.
'Is the Coalition able to address the needs of younger voters?'
The answer is clear now — and it is a definitive no.
Former Liberal pollster turned politics expert Tony Barry gave a brutal assessment of Peter Dutton's efforts to attract the youth vote.
'I think my biggest concern, and we saw this in our research, the Liberal base is now basically boomers,' he told the ABC's election night panel in reference to those born between 1946 and 1964.
'I do not say that in a pejorative way, I am spiritually a boomer but it's too narrow a base to win an election on — basically boomers.
'We failed to expand the base.'
He said the Coalition vote in Victoria should have been strong given cost of living pressures and frustration at the state Labor government. But that did not happen either.
'But Victoria should be the exception to the rule and Victoria the Coalition should have raced away to an early lead on ordinary votes, today's votes, and the fact that they are not — notwithstanding it is a small sample size of the moment — would indicate this is a thumping.'
A thumping it turned out to be. As of midday Sunday, Labor had won 86 seats while the Coalition had only 37.
Speaking to news.com.au in February, Dr Intifar Chowdhury from Flinders University said young voters would 'massively shift the centre of gravity of Australian politics'.
'Another important thing to note is that, although young people do have a progressive leaning, they do not necessarily neatly align with either of the major parties,' she said.
'Younger people are more volatile voters compared to older people and this means that the way they vote might be quite sensitive to the election campaign.'
That's something that's becoming clear in electorates like Brisbane and Griffith where Greens MPs rode a wave of progressive votes to cement the southeast corner of the state as heartland for the left-wing party.
But those same young volatile voters who elected Max Chandler-Mather in Griffith and Stephen Bates in Brisbane did not do the same thing this time around. Both young Greens MPs were ousted in a major blow for the party.
And to put the numbers in perspective, the electorate of Brisbane had received over 111,000 votes by midday Sunday. Of those, more than 30,000 were from voters aged between 19 and 29.
Dr Damon Alexander, a senior lecturer of Politics and Public Policy at Swinburne University, told news.com.au there is something of a conservative shift happening with young voters.
'That's certainly been the case in other jurisdictions around the world, and I'd be surprised if we don't see the same sort of thing in Australia, to an extent,' Dr Alexander said.
'But the conservatives are coming from a long way back in terms of sort of how young people vote in Australia, or have done over the last couple of decades.'
As for Chatfield, who hosted the PM in that March interview, she was full of tears at the prospect that Greens leader Adam Bandt could be defeated in his electorate.
In a series of Instagram posts as Saturday's election results rolled in, Chatfield said she was 'so proud of Australians' who gave their support to Anthony Albanese and the Greens'.
'This is the most important election of our lives. There are so many things at stake here,' she said.
'This is just so relieving. This is so important for our mental health not living in a country where the majority of people are hateful,' she said.
'I really do believe Australians are intelligent, empathetic people as a whole. It felt like we were American levels of divided, this result has shown we aren't divided.'