Here's why the Liberals are losing young people
The Liberals must reframe its message to cut through in a digital world and meet young people where they are at. By Freya Leach.
First published in The Australian
As the Liberal candidate for Balmain, it was always going to be tough. By the close of polling last Saturday, despite containing our swing to -1.7 per cent, I could feel young people abandoning us.
Why are we losing young people? It’s our message and our means. The negative campaign run by Labor was shallow on policy but bold on claims.
The idea that the Liberals have destroyed public education is farcical, having invested record amounts in public school infrastructure. This election, there was a major misalignment between the Liberals’ record of delivery and the response by NSW voters.
The major problem was our messaging. Labor ran a very simple negative campaign. I’m unsure how many Liberal candidates could actually recite the five points of our long-term economic plan to keep NSW moving forward. If our own candidates don’t know it, there’s certainly no way our voters would.
When we finally began to produce negative messaging targeting Chris Minns, we focused on him being the “definition of risk”. While this was an important message, we must remember NSW’s shifting voter demographics.
In 2011, those born before 1964 made up 53 per cent of the voting age population; now they are just 38 per cent. Conversely, Millennials and Gen Z now account for 36 per cent of voters, up from just 17.9 per cent in 2011. The challenge for the Liberal Party this election was that our central message of good economic management simply didn’t resonate with young people.
Why? Because no one under the age of 35 has been in the workforce during a recession. This new bloc of voters has known for the past decade – or whole adult life – an average unemployment rate of 5.4 per cent, inflation at 2.3 per cent and interest rates of just 1.5 per cent. And in key western Sydney seats such as Parramatta – where we suffered double-digit swings – Millennials make up almost half the voting age population. But how do we convince the under-35s that Liberalism is not just the ideology of their Alan Jones-watching grandparents?
There are two things we must do: reframe our message to cut through in a digital world and meet young people where they are at.
Political communication is now hybrid; creating an integrated message across the physical, traditional and social media world is crucial. With Millennials and Gen Z becoming our largest voting blocs in key seats, getting social media right is crucial. The digitisation of political messaging presents two key challenges: new media platforms and the profound influence of algorithms.
Transforming how we engage with social media to reach young people is possible; my candidate TikTok page reached 676 followers and amassed 210,000 views in less than a month.
The exponential reach of social media content – particularly on TikTok – underscores the importance of having a robust digital strategy. And it is a sphere that is dominated by the left.
We need to be blending professional with personal content. A good example of this being implemented well on TikTok is Mark Parton, ACT MLA. His videos range from talking about speed cameras to picking his daughter up from work and being in hospital. He has garnered more than 24,000 followers and millions of views.
Young people value authenticity and a sense of being real. If we do not pivot to produce that content, the negative Liberal brand damage resulting from the ScoMo era will stick. We need to be bridging genres by including references to popular culture and striking the balance between serious and entertaining content. And our serious content needs to be emotive.
While under-35s have never experienced a recession, show them what one would look like. Show them the impact a recession would have on families and mental health. Algorithms are opaque, but when half of our voters are Millennials they are something the Liberal Party needs to master.
Creating engagement, building online communities and buying ads for specific audiences – especially targeting young people – must be pillars of our social media strategy.
While our voters are in the 21st century, the Liberal Party is not. Our social media strategy cannot be an afterthought or perceived as the naive, inferior younger brother of traditional media and paid advertising. Our battleground seats have populations wherein almost half of voters get their news and political information from social media. We need to tailor our message to Millennials and Gen Z, and we need to adopt new means of communicating.
If we do not address this serious deficit in our campaign strategy, we will never reach Millennials and Gen Z. With young people making up the same proportion of voters in key seats as Baby Boomers, not reaching them poses an existential threat to our party.
Freya Leach was the Liberal candidate for Balmain at the recent NSW state election.