The Coalition has a young person problem

Sometimes in election campaigns, politicians say things that make you go "eek". For Peter Dutton, one of those moments came days out from the federal election and related to the crucial issue of housing.

"People are renters for longer, and generally that means that they're more inclined to support the Labor Party. And then, as their views mature politically, they come across the Liberal Party," Mr Dutton told news.com.au.

The opposition leader had, by this stage, spent nearly five weeks trying to position himself as the future "prime minister for home ownership", in an apparent appeal to renters, although this positioning was undermined by missteps, to say nothing of the intervention from his own son Harry, who told reporters that home ownership was "almost impossible" for young people.

So the statement on political maturity made by a prime ministerial hopeful was eek-worthy, and for two main reasons.

First, it suggested that the Coalition's campaign had written off both young people and renters — two growing cohorts of the electorate.

Much has been made of the fact that gen Z and millennial voters outnumbered baby boomers for the first time this year, so it seemed particularly baffling that someone vying to be prime minister would effectively dismiss their concerns by calling them politically immature.

Second, Mr Dutton's assertion that younger voters eventually "come across" to the Liberal Party as they age simply isn't true anymore, no matter how much he wants it to be.

Analysis from the 2022 Australian Election Study found that young people were now starting off more progressive than previous generations, and they weren't becoming more conservative at anywhere near the same rate as they aged.

In 2022, that meant just one in four people aged 40 and under voted for the Coalition, representing what authors of the report called an "existential threat" to the conservative side of politics.

"We've never seen such low levels of support for one of the major parties as we're seeing in levels of support for the Coalition in the under-40 cohort," University of Sydney professor and report co-author Simon Jackman said of the 2022 result.

Furthermore, 2023 research by the Centre for Independent Studies found the Coalition would likely be in the political wilderness in opposition for at least two decades if it didn't address its apparent inability to attract young voters.

So, did the Coalition do anything during this election campaign to heed those warnings? We're still waiting for the dust to settle from the May 3 election, but there are a couple of things we can identify to find an answer.

What policies cut through for people under 40?

Many of the young people that the ABC spoke to during the election campaign said that the Coalition didn't go far enough on the issues they cared about.

Twenty-year-old Elijah Fokkens from Phillip Island, which is in the ultra-marginal seat of Monash, was one of them.

He said housing, climate change and more action on the war in Gaza were his top priorities as a first-time voter.

He was not impressed by the Coalition's offerings.

"I'm stoked that the Coalition lost but pretty upset about all the lost Greens seats in the lower house," he said.

He voted for Climate 200-backed independent Deb Leonard but said he was hopeful the Labor government would act on housing.

"I'd love for Albanese's government to focus hard on housing and to scrap negative gearing and capital gains tax discounts," he said.

"Young people are suffering and all the benefit is being concentrated towards those with capital."

Like many young Australians, Fokkens wanted the major parties to consider more radical change on issues such as housing and climate change.

Climate change also emerged as a cut-through policy for gen Z and millennial voters.

Many, like 32-year-old Russell Jones, said the Coalition's policies — or lack thereof — on climate change made it "unelectable".

"The Liberals were completely unelectable based on their half-baked policy platform coupled with nonsensical and often cherry-picked costings," Jones told the ABC's Your Say project.

While many young people viewed Labor as the least bad option on housing and climate change, some of the party's policies did appear to resonate with the cohort on their own merits too.

Among them: the 20 per cent cut to student loans like HECS and HELP.

First-time voter James, who declined to give his surname, is a student at the Australian National University in Canberra. He said reducing the debt burden on students was the "short-term initiative" that interested him the most.

"I don't really have a party agenda. I pick and choose based on their policies," he said the fortnight before the election.

"I know Labor is planning a 20 per cent cut to HECS. I have no idea what the Libs are planning to do." 

The Coalition waited until virtually the end of the campaign, when it finally released its costings, to confirm that it would not proceed with Labor's 20 per cent cut to student loans and to unveil a plan to change paid-placement rules so that the payment was given as a loan rather than a grant.

"There's nothing that's for free," Shadow Finance Minister Jane Hume told triple j hack on the Thursday before the election while explaining the change.

Ultimately, both policies proved unpopular with younger voters.

"I have no problem with the system as it stands. [I'm] happy for my taxes to go towards subsiding nurses, teachers and other vital trades so as to ensure we get the best candidates through," another said.

"I voted Labor for the first time ever. [I'm] sick of Liberal policies favouring the wealthy."

How did the major parties talk to younger voters?

As in any election, there's the message and then there's the medium, and again the Coalition appears not to have prioritised winning over voters under 40.

According to media company Adgile, both major parties focused much of their ad spending on traditional media, with TV and on-demand channels attracting roughly two-thirds of the expenditure.

But if the first week of campaigning was any indication, Labor seemed to be much more focused on social media advertising than the Coalition, outspending it substantially, although it was clear that they both saw the benefits of reaching younger voters online.

Adam Bandt, Peter Dutton and Anthony Albanese all campaigned on TikTok, with varying degrees of success. The prime minister secured 1 million likes and 77,6000 followers, which was double the likes and followers Dutton has.

All three leaders and their parties heavily leaned into meme culture, too.

There was also a massive change this election in the way the major parties used content creators and podcasters, with Bandt and Albanese focusing their attention on longer sit-down interviews with younger, more progressive outlets or creators.

Both appeared on Abbie Chatfield's popular podcast It's A Lot, as well as Big Small Talk, a podcast co-hosted by Cheek Media's Hannah Ferguson.

So, with Dutton and Bandt both out of a job and Albanese preparing to govern with at least 91 seats, did Labor's strategy have the edge?

"Combined with a coordinated influencer outreach, including briefings with popular creators, Labor's campaign showed a keen understanding of the algorithmic economy," Griffith University social media expert Susan Grantham wrote in The Conversation.

While he appeared on a couple of podcasts earlier this year, during the campaign Dutton tended to focus on speaking to traditional outlets whose audiences skew conservative, such as Sky News and talkback radio.

But Grantham said the Liberals used social media in clever ways to reach audiences they otherwise might not have.

Grantham said it was too early to know if content on TikTok swayed the outcome of the election, but she said it proved to be a turning point in the way the parties campaigned.

"Politics has never looked or sounded quite like it did in 2025," she said.