The general consensus once held that people became more conservative as they aged, and their voting habits followed. Photo / 123rf, File
The general consensus once held that people became more conservative as they aged, and their voting habits followed. Photo / 123rf, File
Opinion by Ross Stitt
OPINION
With an election just three months away, there’s a new Australian research paper that should be compulsory reading for all New Zealand political parties, and the National Party in particular.
It’s called, “Generation Left: young voters are deserting the right”.
Don’t be put off by the title. It’s notsome self-serving polemic from the Australian Labor Party. Rather, it’s a serious analysis of demographic voting behaviour released last week by the Centre for Independent Studies, a centre-right think tank based in Sydney.
It makes for grim reading if you’re a political conservative.
For many years, there’s been a fundamental rule in politics in the Anglosphere that most voters move right on the political spectrum as they age. This rule reflects the old adage that if you don’t lean left when you’re young, you don’t have a heart, and if you don’t lean right when you’re older, you don’t have a brain.
Illustration / Rod Emmerson
This rightward shift has always been attributed to economic self-interest in people who acquire a home and other assets as they age.
Matthew Taylor, the author of the “Generation Left” research paper, provides compelling evidence that this rule is now breaking down in Australia.
It still applies to Baby Boomers (born between 1946 and 1964) and to Generation X (born 1965 to 1980). As those generations have aged, they have voted in higher numbers for the centre-right Coalition.
However, a very different trend is emerging for Australia’s Millennials (born 1981 to 1995) and their successors, Generation Z (born after 1995).
The evidence indicates that these two demographic cohorts are starting out on the ideological left but they’re not heading right as they age.
In fact, in the case of Generation Z, they’re heading further left.
That’s good news for the Australian Labor Party and the Greens, and bad news for the Coalition.
We saw the result in the 2022 federal election when only one in four voters under the age of 40 gave their primary vote to the Coalition.
In something of an understatement, Taylor concludes that this change in generational voting behaviour “could have politically important ramifications” if it continues.
In short, it would make it increasingly difficult for Australia’s centre-right parties to win elections.
This electoral phenomenon of “sticky” left voting is not unique to Australia.
Last year, Financial Times undertook a similar analysis of voting patterns in the UK. The results were the same. Boomers and Gen Xers have headed right as they’ve aged, but Millennials are bucking the trend.
It seems that becoming more conservative with age – what the FT calls “the oldest rule in politics” – is not for Millennials.
What’s causing this upheaval in demographic voting patterns?
In the Australian context, many younger voters believe centre-left parties offer better solutions for the problems that concern them – from economic insecurity and climate change to healthcare access and housing affordability.
Crucially, those concerns do not appear to be going away for Millennials and Gen Zers as they age.
Therefore, their voting preferences are also not changing.
It would take a brave, or foolish, National Party politician to think that what happens in Australia isn’t applicable in NZ.
So, how can the party respond?
The obvious answer is to provide policies consistent with the preferences of the Millennial and Gen Z cohorts. But it’s not clear that such policies would be consistent with National Party (or Act Party) ideology.
Ross Stitt.
That’s the dilemma for all centre-right parties grappling with Millennials and Gen Zers who continue to lean left as they age – how to win their votes without sacrificing party principles. Or is sacrifice inevitable? Will the ageing of Generation Left slowly drag the entire political spectrum left over time?
The coming election in October will be an interesting test.
Millennials and Gen Z will represent a larger proportion of Kiwi voters than ever before. Opposition leader Christopher Luxon can’t afford to ignore them, but he’ll be hoping they’re less left-wing than their counterparts across the Tasman.
If there is a Generation Left factor at play in the election, Luxon could be in trouble.
However, the report from the Centre for Independent Studies offers him some hope for conservatives amid the gloom.
It states that “if a political party finds itself swimming against the structural tide, it will require pivotal blunders on the part of its adversaries to regain the political advantage”.
“Pivotal blunders” from Luxon’s adversaries? You wouldn’t rule that out.
- Ross Stitt is a Kiwi living in Sydney. A freelance writer, he has a PhD in political science.
