How Labor and the Liberals are trying to win over Gen Z and Millennials in 2025
Labor and the Liberals are embracing the weird, wacky and just plain cringe this election campaign. WATCH THE BEST (AND WORST)
Federal Election
Don't miss out on the headlines from Federal Election. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Mega-famous pop star Sabrina Carpenter opens her sparkly towel on stage to reveal … a Medicare card, while a forlorn Macauley Culkin in Home Alone can’t afford a low taper fade haircut because of prices under Labor.
Most Australian voters will have missed these big moments in the federal election campaign, but that actually means things are going to plan.
Every political strategist knows it’s impossible to “narrow cast” in an election – the national media scrutiny is just too intense to be trying to send one message to one demographic, and another to someone else.
But in 2025, the major parties are increasingly diversifying the mode of delivery so that every Australian gets the same core message wherever it is they live online.
Every Australian is getting their “personalised election” one Liberal insider says.
HAVE YOU EVER TRIED THIS ONE?
Huddled in a corner of Labor’s campaign headquarters in Sydney’s inner suburb of Surry Hills, an in-house team of mostly – but not all – young party members spend their days cutting clips and splicing pop culture references into key campaign moments.
Some opportunities – like Coalition Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price declaring she wants to “make Australia great again” – fall from the sky, gifts from the election gods just ready to go viral.
Others tapping into TikTok and Instagram trends take trial and error, with mixed results.
“We’re reaching the demographics we want to be reaching and growing followers steadily, not really from trending videos for people too young to vote,” one Labor HQ source says.
“That’s empty calorie growth and not useful to us.”
The nimble team operates with minimal oversight from the main campaign machine, and each state and territory branch of the ALP has a small number of people working on local accounts.
West Australian Labor, having just come off the back of a state election, is by the far the most match-fit of these satellite accounts.
US pop star Katy Perry was barely back on earth after her 10-minute jaunt into space this week before WA Labor had posted a video of her kissing the ground where Perry was “Peter Dutton” and the ground was “Medicare cuts”.
That “Mediscare” message has been a constant Labor tactic across all advertising, and according one external pollster it is “absolutely cutting through” across Australia.
Labor’s socials team don’t resile from their strategy even when not everyone “gets it”.
They shrugged off some of the pearl clutching reactions in mainstream media to their use of a viral clip of a Carpenter performance heaped in sexual innuendo where the blonde pop singer asks “have you ever tried this one?” only in Labor’s version the clip ends with a picture of a Medicare Urgent Care Clinic.
The momentary outrage over that, and the sparkly towel, quickly died down and the ALP team kept on posting content for the 18- to 34-year-olds online who didn’t bat an eyelid at the use of the well-known trends.
MEET TIM CHEESE
The Liberal Party also has an in-house team working on social media content out of their Parramatta headquarters in Western Sydney, but this election the Coalition also brought in some outside firepower.
They’re working with creative digital firm Topham Guerin, who are credited with massively building the online presence of the New Zealand National Party during its winning 2023 election campaign.
The agency boasts it developed a “crafty campaign” in NZ, that “changed the face of the electoral landscape forever”.
The Liberals declined to speak about their strategy, but analysis of some of their biggest videos on TikTok has found several – including the Home Alone clip spoofing rising living costs under Labor – was posted from the United Kingdom.
Unlike Labor, the Liberal Party is purely targeting virality on TikTok, tapping into fleeting trends and posting content the average viewer any older than their early 20s would likely find nonsensical.
Tim Cheese, an AI-generated rat in a suit and glasses, started appearing widely on TikTok a few months ago with the trending marsupial quickly co-opted by the Liberals.
In their world, Cheese is going to have to leave the country because of the rising cost of dairy under Labor.
The party has embraced what’s known as “brain rot,” posting content packed with references only understood by the perpetually online, designed to engage and make fun.
But as much as they lean in SpongeBob SquarePants AI, clips from the Simpsons and Minecraft movie reactions, the content still has a corporate edge and will often end in the same punch line about the “cost” of living under Labor the last three years.
WHO’S WATCHING?
The Liberal Party of Australia’s TikTok account has about 107.4k followers and has amassed 4.1m likes and has several viral videos like one with 2.7m views parodies the Grinch who stole Christmas, blaming Labor for high costs.
The Coalition has also shown a willingness to lean into cringe, this week releasing a “diss track” rap song in an attempt to bait Labor into starting a musical feud online.
Even though the ALP’s Tasmanian branch did momentarily try to respond, before swiftly being shut down by national HQ, this kind of confected content rarely works.
A quick search of “Liberal Party diss track” on TikTok reveals a list of top results that are mostly traditional news organisations talking about the song, rather than anyone actually organically adopting the sound into their own videos.
Meanwhile the Australian Labor Party has 122.5k followers on TikTok and its videos have attracted about 2.8m likes, with its most watched videos actually dating back to the 2022 campaign, and generally featuring clips from press conferences and the debates rather than custom content created for the platform.
Labor has about 88.1k followers on Instagram and tends to share much of the same content as is posted on its TikTok account.
This mirroring likely doesn’t result in that much double up, as everyone on the internet knows millennials catch up on viral trends via Instagram reels a few weeks after Gen Z has already moved to the next thing on TikTok.
The Liberals have only about 53k followers on Instagram, but the content here is geared far more toward older millennials and Gen X, than it’s dedicated Gen Z content on TikTok.
With Facebook now the platform almost entirely populated by the Boomer generation, who are also still able to be reached with free-to-air television ads, there is less of a focus on tailoring the content to the 326,000 and 297,000 followers that Labor and the Liberals respectfully have.
The two leaders also have dedicated social media staff, who ensure a constant stream of announcements, voter interactions and personable videos are posted to their official accounts.
Anthony Albanese far-out paces his opponent, with 456,000 Instagram followers compared to Peter Dutton’s 52,300.
A STAR IS BORN
Far from campaign HQ, the MPs themselves are getting in on the social media action.
Within Labor, a cabal of mostly first-term MPs have had a prolific social media presence from day one.
Reid MP Sally Sitou will wander around to her colleagues’ offices and get them to try super spicy noodles, Tangey MP Sam Lim will give a run down of his packed lunches, Jerome Laxale will pop out of a home building site portaloo and Hunter MP Repacholi will brave an ice bath for a good cause in his electorate.
All interspersed with more information-heavy content promoting Labor’s latest policy initiatives and criticising the Coalition.
This term, senior ministers have also been increasingly diving into the world of online trends.
Since becoming Housing Minister mid-last year Clare O’Neil has become a top poster on Instagram and TikTok among her colleagues, with her most successful posts often simply rapid-fire information dumps about Labor policies.
Aged Care and Sport Minister Anika Wells is also a big social media user who loves to lean into trending video ideas, such as a recent popular format riffing off the popular TV series Severance.
Both ministers are what the kids call “elder millennials” with one self-described “un-cool” older Labor MP pointing out those at the younger end of the caucus can “more get away with” this approach.
But cool or not, there are plenty of Labor heavyweights willing to embrace the cringe.
A quick scroll on Instagram will show Energy and Climate Change Chris Bowen sitting down with a cuppa as a box is thrown at his head or Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek speaking earnestly down the camera while one side of the screen features coloured sand being squashed.
It’s what’s known as “sludge” or “overstimulation” content, with the theory being the random colourful videos on one side of the split screen will capture a viewer’s attention for long enough for them to potentially absorb the information being spouted on the other side.
The Liberals are also having fun, like Herbert MP Phil Thompson – a man not afraid to give a twirl for the cameras with his tutu-wearing daughters – and La Trobe MP Jason Wood, who doesn’t mind a good Simpsons meme, while Finance spokeswoman Jane Hume’s cocktail recipes are not to be missed.
DOES IT WORK?
A Labor campaign spokeswoman says the party’s strategy is to share the party’s plan with “all Australians, where they are and in the form they want to consume it”.
“If Australians are accessing news and engaging with politics online then we’re making sure we’re meeting them there, as well as communicating through well-established traditional media channels,” she says.
Redbridge Group director and former Labor strategist Kos Samaras says he doesn’t believe any of the major parties have “worked out how to properly create content that is in line with what interests younger Australians”.
He says there’s a “risk” in Labor and the Coalition annoying, rather than engaging people with ads on platforms like YouTube, as “passive advertising” like this doesn’t work with younger generations.
“Younger people just view it as an intrusion of their scrolling and entertainment,” he says.
“If you’re applying a 2010 approach to advertising in this media space, you’re going to fail.”
More Coverage
Originally published as How Labor and the Liberals are trying to win over Gen Z and Millennials in 2025
‘Nothing could prepare me’: On the road with Peter Dutton
This is what you don't see on the TV. Mikaela Mulveney spent three days on the federal election campaign trail with Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, and this is what she saw.
Nazi images, stolen and defaced signs reveal desperate, dirty battles
Even before the election was called, people were caught on camera tearing down the signs of opponents. We look at some of the dirty games being played.