Matt Kean’s shock message to Young Libs: Ignore how your parents will vote on Voice

In a move set to anger federal Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, Liberal MP and Yes supporter Matt Kean is calling on the party’s younger members to ignore how their parents are voting on the Voice and represent their own generation.

Liberal MP and Yes supporter Matt Kean has called on the party’s younger members to ­ignore how their parents are voting in the referendum and instead be the voice of their own generation.

Blaming a “generational divide” for differences in how the “story of Australia” is understood, the moderate powerbroker says young Liberals needed to stand up for what they believe in, rather than trying to appeal to another generation or “future preselector”.

In a provocative keynote address to be delivered to the NSW Young Liberals convention on Saturday, Mr Kean will declare the youth arm of the party to be facing an “existential crisis” over its purpose.

The crisis centres on whether to “embody this generation” or “appease my generation”, Mr Kean will say.

The debate over the Voice was an example of this crisis, with two different Australian stories having been told — the real cause of the division in the country, he says.

Matt Kean meets Lucas from Brolga Dance Academy at a Yes event in July. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Monique Harmer

“It’s a generational divide,” Mr Kean says. “My generation and my parents’ generation were taught that Captain Cook discovered Australia and the Blue Mountains were first travelled by Blaxland, Lawson and Wentworth.

“The Indigenous story was foreign to them. It was an asterisk that Cook, Phillip and Macquarie interacted with Indigenous people. They were effectively bystanders to the story of empire and a new land.

“Your generation knows that’s not true. History didn’t start in 1788, though I do not in any way diminish the strength, character and grit of those new settlers.

“Your generation knows the story of Australia is much older, more nuanced and we have been reckoning with it for over two centuries.”

Mr Kean says sustaining a “path to influence” required the party’s younger members to “stand up” for what they believed in.

“Our party needs the Young Liberals not to be a faint echo what they hope will appeal to future preselectors, but to be a voice for its generation,” he says.

“Is the purpose of the Young Liberal Movement to embody this generation, or to appease my generation?

“I believe you are at your best when you embody the future rather than seeking to mimic and appease the past.

Mr Kean is among a group of cross-factional NSW Liberals supporting the Yes vote.

He will also use his speech to declare how the party needs to respond to what he describes as a “demographic drift” that had contributed to the March state election loss.

“While historically people have become more conservative as they age, that is no longer the case,” he said.

“We’ve seen the same trend with female voters, that in the 30 federal seats with the highest proportion of female professional voters, the Liberal Party only holds only three. We used to hold 15.

“And migrants — who are often the hardest working and most entrepreneurial of all our citizens — are not voting Liberal at scale.”

The convention is being held in Newcastle.

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