It’s a boomer bust for the Liberals as Gen Z, Millenials send a savage wake up call | Caleb Bond

If you want young Australians to vote conservative, they need something to conserve, writes Caleb Bond.

When the Coalition lost government in 2022 there was a load of wailing that they were over.

Reports of their death, I insisted at the time, were greatly exaggerated.

And I was right – because if 2022 was a killing, then last weekend was the equivalent of blowing someone’s head off with a rocket launcher at close range.

I won’t bother going through everything the Coalition got wrong because this column has a word limit and to tell you what they got right would be as short as the list of people upset that Greens leader Adam Bandt lost his seat.

Politics is cyclic and the Coalition is currently at the bottom of that cycle.

Defeated former opposition leader Peter Dutton arrives in Canberra after the weekend’s landslide defeat. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

But what is clear is that the Liberal Party (not the Nationals because they held all but one seat and nearly took Bendigo from Labor) needs to rediscover its purpose.

Robert Menzies set it out in 1954 in his We Believe statement – that Liberals believe in, among other things, the individual, liberty, that the class war is a false war, that improved living standards depend upon high productivity and efficient service, that economic power and policy are not designed to control people’s lives, the great human freedoms and religious and racial tolerance among our citizens.

They are all as noble and relevant as they were 70 years ago – and they are relevant to young people, too.

This is one of the main demographics the Liberal Party has failed to capture, which is a problem given Gen Z and millennial voters outnumbers baby boomers at the ballot box for the first time this year.

But the Libs should be able to sell a credible message that they will empower young people.

Where, in the campaign, did they talk about the fact that bracket creep disproportionately hurts young people?

A graduate starting work today will be banking on significant career progression and pay rises over the next decade, in which time he will be smashed by bracket creep which forces him to hand over more of his income due to inflation.

Tax cuts – and a vision to actually reform the tax system – should be sold as a policy to put more money in the hands of aspirational young people rather than the “rich”.

Likewise changes to the superannuation system.

Labor’s plan to charge a 30 per cent tax on unrealised capital gains in superannuation accounts above $3 million is insane.

It is, in essence, a tax on money you don’t have.

We all understand paying tax on profit you’ve made but paying tax on profit you haven’t made is unprecedented.

And you might say that you’d have to be rich to have $3 million in super.

But this policy is not indexed and new analysis from AMP Capital deputy chief economist Diana Mousina has found that someone who is 22 today, and earns an average wage their whole life, will have $3 million in super by the time they’re 64.

This isn’t a tax on the rich – it’s a tax on young people working hard to save for their retirement.

The Coalition, for some reason, barely mentioned it.

And the clincher is home ownership.

To be conservative you need something to conserve and that means a home and a family.

That seems entirely out of reach for most young people so why would they vote for a conservative party?

We don’t need plans to make loans easier to acquire – we need housing to be more affordable.

This has to be the bread and butter of a Liberal Party that wants to remain relevant.

Originally published as It’s a boomer bust for the Liberals as Gen Z, Millenials send a savage wake up call | Caleb Bond