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Major
Australian
Political
Parties Need A
Vision For The
Future In Order
To Engage
Young Voters.
Discuss.
Janet Davey
Adults frequently lament that they wish teenagers cared as much
about who was running the country as they do about the latest post
on Facebook. They bewail the belief that young people really don’t
care that much about politics. But the truth is – young people do care
about the issues facing Australia and what the future will be like. Yes,
teenagers
seem
disengaged from politics. However, upon closer
examination, it becomes evident that the majority of young people
care deeply about political issues, but find it difficult to engage with a
political landscape utterly devoid of vision.
One does not have to follow Australian politics closely to have an
understanding of its focus over the past few years. It’s been pretty
negative. Every day that Parliament sits seems to produce a new
sound-bite of abuse from one politician to another. Both Labor and
the Coalition have run campaigns attacking the character of the
other leader. Who can forget the wall-punching affair? The
AWU
slush-fund scandal? Dr No, the misogynist? The objective seems
largely to have been for the parties to portray themselves as being
the ‘lesser of two evils’ rather than being capable of making a positive
impact onAustralian society. Voters have been left feeling pessimistic
about those supposedly ‘leading’ the country, and young voters in
particular have been affected. Obviously, young people haven’t spent
a great deal of time engaged with the political sphere, so this highly
critical environment can seem the ‘norm’ to them, and can leave
them feeling disillusioned with democracy itself. This is evidenced
by a 2012 Lowy Institute Poll which reported that only 39% of young
Australians (aged 18 to 29) chose democracy as the most preferable
form of government for Australia.
1
The focus by the two major parties on character assessments has
meant that there has been little time since the last election for a
comprehensive public discussion of policies. Albeit, in recent
months this has improved somewhat with the release of theNational
Disability Insurance Scheme, the ‘Gonski’ school reforms, the
budget, and Abbott’s generous paid parental leave scheme. By and
large, however, many policies have passed through Parliament with
little public dialogue, or else if there has been debate, it has focused
on the policy’s writer – with cries that they will rob/desert/abandon
Australian families/workers/middle-class voters – rather than on
the merits of the policy itself. This has meant that the majority of
Australian voters, and particularly less-experienced younger voters,
12
1
Data from
The Lowy
Institute Poll 2012:
‘Australia and New
Zealand in the World:
Public Opinion and
Foreign Policy’, 2012