AusPol101: Young people are following the federal election closely, just not how you might think.

 

We are delighted to introduce our new Wednesday columnist…

 

Territory raised Grace Mackenzie is a final year journalism student at Deakin University. Now based in Melbourne, she is an avid follower of Australian politics and is turning towards writing as an outlet for her enthusiasm – rather than debating anyone in earshot. When she’s not writing, she can be found behind the bar slinging beers (or in front of the bar drinking them). AusPol1010 will appear each Wednesday (as long as Grace does not do a Jeffrey Bernard).

 

 

 

 

This will be the first federal election that I’ll be able to vote in, and that’s the case for the majority of the people I walk past on campus. When the 2019 election rolled around, I probably couldn’t have even told you if it was the Liberals or Labor that were conservative (at 20, I can tell you now; it’s both).

 

What I could tell you was what I believed in and, whatever that was, my dad disagreed. I could also tell you ten stories I’d heard about each candidate. I based my opinions on whether I would’ve invited their teenage selves to a party. In an odd way I think that’s the most important part and the beauty of being young and naïve in politics. That’s not to say that young people don’t take this stuff seriously, we have to take an interest with the future we’re facing: an unaffordable housing market, an escalating climate crisis and a cost of living that makes your stomach drop. But in an age of social media where rumours and witty one-liners stick around much longer than facts or statistics, being relevant to people’s lives, and relatable, are a politician’s best friend. People will remember the teenage boy who smashed an egg over a politician’s head much longer than the idiocracy of anything Fraser Anning ever spewed out of his mouth.

 

Young people are consuming media in an ever evolving and complex fashion, traditional radio and television have a miniscule impact in comparison to a 15 second video. It’s not a truth any of the parties are unfamiliar with. A quick scan of the Liberal’s Instagram page will currently show you a TikTok of Opposition’s Anthony Albanese’s ‘Day in the Life’, while Labor’s most recent reel is a remix of the Spice Girls hit ‘Wannabe’ reminding people to enrol to vote. Doing something and doing it well are completely different things, and it’s uncommon for these posts to be the latter. Rather, they resemble a show about teenagers being played by 20-somethings and written by middle-aged men, each line gives you the same queasy feeling that you get when your father tells you something is ‘on fleek’ in 2022.

 

Social media and politics share the key characteristic that majority of both are constructed and inauthentic, but that does not make them interchangeable. So, it’s little surprise that the best political commentary for young people is made by younger people themselves. Pages like ‘Australian Green Memes for Actually Progressive Teens’ on Facebook and ‘The Betoota Advocate’ have a much higher success rate for reposts and engagement amongst 20 year olds than official political pages. I have been an avid follower of the satirical Facebook page ‘Scotty From Marketing’ for a while now. Do I follow Morrison’s official social media? Of course not, I would much rather reserve social media for comical political commentary and save my groans and eyerolls for my weekly read of The Herald Sun.

 

Labor’s recent win in South Australia led by Peter Malinauskas is an excellent example of this. This success is chalked up to two things: Malinauskas’ popularity and Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s lack of it. The campaign of the now Premier focused on how he was relatable: a grandson of refugees, a former union boss, and a self-proclaimed average footy player. And it worked, but not just for older generations. It’s easier for students, often at the beginning of their careers (and stocking shelves), to relate more to someone who worked at Woolies themselves when they were studying.

 

I recently spoke with election analyst and author of ‘The Poll Bludger’, one of Australia’s most visited websites for political commentary and opinion poll analysis, William Bowe, who had been in South Australia following the state election. He confirmed my beliefs that it wasn’t the incumbent governments fault. “It’s always an advantage in an election for the other side to be in power federally”, but a loss after sitting for just one term isn’t very common, “this is an indication that the Morrison Government are in trouble and they are a bigger than usual drag on the Liberal Party”.

 

These days I’m more involved in politics than a fair share of the people I surround myself with, but I would be lying if I said that I couldn’t tell you what year Scott Morrison allegedly disgracing himself in an Engadine Maccas (it was 1997) faster than I could tell you the key points of last month’s Budget. It’s a consensus I hear in political conversation more than people would expect, it’s not uncommon for a friend who isn’t overly involved in politics to say they like Albo purely because they saw a photo of him in his twenties and could just tell “that he liked a good Sunday sesh”, or that they don’t Scotty because they saw they photo of him “chucking up a shaka” in Hawaii while half the country was burning. Political commentary has shifted over the years and become increasingly more accepted over a couple of beers, and I may have to go sober if I have to explain how the preferential system works on round three again.

 

 

 

 

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