Kylie Lang: Clueless younger voters turning to influencers for ‘facts’

It is the natural order of things that Gen Zs and millennials now outstrip the number of baby boomers voting, but would it hurt them to do their homework, writes Kylie Lang.

Plenty hasn’t sat well with me about this federal election campaign – the lies and reckless spending from Labor and the seeming inability of The Coalition to convince Australians of a viable alternative.

The outcome will be revealed soon enough, but also of concern is a lack of independent thought by a new wave of voters.

It is the natural order of things that Gen Zs and millennials now outstrip the number of baby boomers voting, but would it hurt them to do their homework?

So many seem clueless.

The youngest ones have expressly wished for social media influencers – the same people promoting instant bikini bodies and other such nonsense – to explain what the parties stand for and tell them how to vote.

Some don’t even know what The Coalition is. Heads up: it’s not the Labor Party; it’s the Liberal and National parties that first aligned more than 100 years ago.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese takes photographs with members of the public during a visit to Freedom Plaza in the suburb of Cabramatta. (Photo by Asanka Ratnayake/Getty Images)

Others have turned to online platforms like Build a Ballot. It asks them to fill out a questionnaire on issues such as housing, climate change and cost of living then matches their answers to candidates in their electorate and state.

I’m not kidding.

As a Gen X-er, I’m not saying older voters are necessarily better informed – there are a lot of dunderheads out there who are fooled by cash splashes and lack functioning memories of what put Australia in this cost of living crisis (clue: not The Coalition).

And I’m certainly not writing off younger generations as a whole, but I have spoken to many kids during this election campaign who are scarily ignorant or at best blasé.

Like the pair who rang my doorbell.

Armed with Labor flyers, they proceeded to tell me Opposition Leader Peter Dutton would destroy Medicare.

This same lie was peddled in 2016, I countered, but they’d not heard of “Mediscare”. They were probably still in primary school.

The Mediscare campaign terrified voters into believing Malcolm Turnbull’s government would privatise Medicare.

This didn’t happen of course but Labor, which lost, was eager to resurrect it.

Ads showing Mr Dutton saying “Medicare is dead” have been wickedly misleading because the context has been edited out.

What Mr Dutton actually said, back in 2014 as health minister, was: “Medicare is dead if we can’t make it sustainable today.”

Referring to a co-payment plan then for bulk-billed consultations, Mr Dutton said: “The Labor Party will kill Medicare by offering everything to everybody for free and the [Coalition] government is determined to make Medicare sustainable [and] strong, not just for today, these are plans that will set up Medicare for the next decade or two.

“So the Labor Party can pretend to the Australian public that things are for free; they can’t be for free, we have to pay for a world-class medical system.”

Never mind the truth.

Labor has thrown everything at this election, considered unwinnable after three years of inept and woke governing that included the divisive, costly and failed Voice referendum.

Mr Albanese, despite deserved odds, has emerged as appealing to those who’d written him off.

As for younger voters, they’re inclined to think Mr Albanese and Mr Dutton are both “delulu with no solulu”.

Gen Zs and millennials now outstrip the number of baby boomers voting. Picture: Adam Head / NewsWire

They don’t feel heard – something the leaders must wear – and they’re turning to the Greens and Independents.

What they don’t seem to get is that their major grievances around housing affordability and living standards cannot be solved by minor players with zero experience managing money and very little influence.

Greens and Teals cannot boost productivity and drive up wages – the two main factors that will allow young people to come within reach of the lives their parents have.

But neither can Labor.

Handouts have to come from somewhere – and heaven isn’t it.

Sugar hits like non-means-tested energy rebates, $17bn tax breaks and 20 per cent off student loans will only add to the soaring national debt our kids will be paying off for the rest of their days.

I’m not surprised some young people have switched off, voting only because they don’t want a fine, but it is deeply troubling they are deferring to ill-informed sources to tell them how to number boxes on the ballot paper.

This does not augur well for a robust democratic nation.

Kylie Lang is Associate Editor of The Courier-Mail

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Originally published as Kylie Lang: Clueless younger voters turning to influencers for ‘facts’