Tom Minear: Why Anthony Albanese is seeing Green with young voters

While Joe Biden tries to curry favour with young Americans, Tom Minear argues Anthony Albanese risks becoming yesterday’s man without a better pitch to youthful voters.

It was no surprise the US Supreme Court struck down Joe Biden’s plan to cancel $430bn of student loan debts for 40 million Americans.

The President himself had questioned his legal authority to forgive the loans, but he tried anyway – with no regard for those who worked for years to pay off their debts – because the 80-year-old has a problem with young voters.

At last year’s midterm elections, only 53 per cent of voters under 30 backed Democratic candidates, compared to 61 per cent who supported Biden over Donald Trump in 2020.

US President Joe Biden speaks about the US Supreme Court's decision overruling student debt forgiveness, in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, DC, on June 30. Picture: Jim Watson/AFP

Young Americans are not becoming more conservative. More of them are just not bothering to vote, with 71 per cent of those aged 18 to 29 saying they are not politically engaged.

If the oldest president in history cannot reverse that trend, his re-election campaign may well be doomed, which is why Biden is now promising to “stop at nothing” to find other ways to deliver loan relief.

Compare that to Anthony Albanese, who did precisely nothing when HECS debts owed by Australian students skyrocketed 7.1 per cent a month ago.

Economically, his inaction in the face of a Greens campaign to abolish indexation made sense, given our interest-free loans are far more equitable than the US system.

US President Joe Biden and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at the G7 Leaders' Summit in Hiroshima in May. Picture: Kenny Holston/POOL/AFP

Politically, it seemed similarly understandable, given the conventional wisdom is that the Liberal and National parties are the ones with the youth problem. More Millennial and Gen Z voters backed the Greens than the Coalition last year, and experts suggested last week that young Australians are no longer becoming more conservative as they grow older.

But that does not guarantee Anthony Albanese’s hold on The Lodge, especially not with Labor’s narrow majority. The Greens nabbed three seats last year and are gunning for more.

Scrapping indexation on HECS is much like their push for rental caps: a populist solution to a serious problem.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at the opening of the Rabbitohs Heffron Community & High Performance Centre this weekend. Picture: David Swift

The Greens blithely ignore any consequences (the $9bn bill to abolish indexation; the chilling effect on housing supply) because they are not in a position to govern.

That matters little to young people who feel – rightly, in many respects – cheated by politics.

Here in the US, Biden is at least trying to respond to their fears and frustrations.

Albanese is no doubt emboldened by his years battling and beating the Greens in his inner-city electorate.

But while he might be two decades younger than his US counterpart, without a better pitch to young Australians, he too risks becoming yesterday’s man.

Originally published as Tom Minear: Why Anthony Albanese is seeing Green with young voters