Reframing Liberalism
The Liberal Party is predicated on two core ideas; freedom and aspiration. Both of these are under attack. by Freya Leach.
First published in the MRC’s Watercooler newsletter. Click here to sign up to the newsletter.
As the MRC's new research fellow I'd like to share what we as a movement can offer to young people.
As the 20-year-old Liberal candidate for Balmain at the recent NSW state election, I always knew things would be tough. Over 80% of voters in the electorate do not support the Liberal Party. This was the challenge I signed up for.
The only rejection that fazed me was when students and young professionals would walk up to the polling booth with just one How-to-vote: the Greens.
Surely these people don’t want the lights to turn off, taxes to skyrocket and the economy to tank? More confusingly, these Greens voters were often well-educated, high-income earners.
While Balmain has always been a strong Greens and Labor seat, this trend of young people rejecting the Liberal Party was mirrored in electorates across NSW.
The contrast between state and federal results in NSW show that women and urbanites will still vote for Liberal candidates.
Young people not voting for the Liberal party is a greater threat.
The adage that people get more conservative as they get older is breaking down. When Millennials began voting, 36% supported the Coalition, now it’s just 25%.
Meanwhile, there are now almost as many Millennial voters as there are Baby Boomers. In key seats, where the party suffered double-digit swings, Millennials made up almost half of the voting-age population.
What is causing this shift in voting behaviour?
One explanation is that no one under 35 has been in the workforce during a recession. Millennials and Gen Z have known for the last decade an average unemployment rate of 5.4%, inflation at 2.3% and interest rates at just 1.5%. We take for granted the strong economy we have inherited. Ironically, we are the beneficiaries of the very party we reject.
If the key issue is our message not resonating, then we must reframe it. We need to meet young people where they are at by using new platforms, collaborating with trusted voices and building digital infrastructure.
But social media is a sphere that is currently dominated by the Left. FriendlyJordies is an influencer and entertainer. Unions have sponsored him to spread pro-Labor messaging and he has garnered over 211 million views on YouTube alone. Most people my age have friends who watched FriendlyJordies because they were curious about politics and subsequently joined the Labor Party.
But the deeper challenge for the Liberal Party is not just around branding and marketing, young people have actually been captured by anti-Liberal ideas.
The Liberal Party is predicated on two core ideas; freedom and aspiration. Both of these are under attack.
From a person’s first paycheck, freedom is constrained. At a minimum, 10.5% of one’s wage is carved out and stored in the coffers of big super funds.
The breach of freedom becomes even more difficult for young people because that hard-earned money could be put towards a first home instead.
Even more concerningly, when polled by YouGov in 2018, 58% of Australian Millennials viewed socialism favourably, with just 18% viewing it unfavourably.
Socialism stands in irreconcilable conflict with the democracy and individual liberty our Party defends.
As Alexis de Tocqueville said in 1848:
“Democracy extends the sphere of individual freedom, socialism restricts it. Democracy attaches all possible value to each man; socialism makes each man a mere agent, a mere number.”
The cultural forces pushing against freedom go deeper than a naive love of socialism.
On the one hand, there’s an insistence by young people that distinctions associated with inherited identity, be that differences between sexes, classes, religions or lifestyles, should be rejected in the interests of equality. On the other hand, people are being reduced to those very things that the Left claimed meant nothing.
The new Left is trying to resurrect the class war that Menzies crusaded against by defining people in terms of immutable personal attributes. It leaves young people chained to their arbitrary physical characteristics.
The natural result is a politics of envy, where the role of the government is to redistribute the wealth of the privileged few to the masses of victims.
This is fundamentally at odds with the Liberal vision of Australia. While the Left is the politics of envy, Liberalism is the politics of aspiration.
Friedrich Hayek said the most far-reaching effect of our freedom’s success in the Western world “is the new sense of power over their own fate, the belief in the unbounded possibilities of improving their own lot. With the success grows ambition—and man has every right to be ambitious.”
But without freedom and a strong sense of self-determination — both of which are languishing among young people — there can be no ambition or aspiration.
As G.K. Chesterton wrote, “The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.”
If we want to preserve the values that formed our country, the freedom and aspiration that Menzies envisioned for all Australians, we must fight for it.
The young people of today who are attracted to socialism and reject the Liberal Party might be immature 18-30 year-olds today, but like it or not, they will be the leaders of tomorrow.
That’s why the Menzies Research Centre is leading the charge to protect the values articulated by Sir Robert Menzies. We are establishing the Centre for Youth Policy, led by young people, for young people. The goal of our centre is to develop policy and engage with young people to win them over and prevent entrenched Labor governments.
We will tackle key challenges facing young people —housing, mental health and the environment — from a values-based Liberal perspective.
We have the ideas, the vision and the plan, but we need your support. If you want to protect the values of Menzies, the Liberal Party and Australia for future generations, then please consider supporting our Centre for Youth Policy.
Please click here to make a tax-deductible donation.
Freya Leach is the Director of the Centre for Youth Policy