The yoof of today
In today’s Oz, George Megalogenis reported on “secret” Coalition research.
THE Howard Government has suffered a dramatic slump in support among young Australians as secret Coalition research shows one in four voters aged 18-24 have swung to Labor since Kevin Rudd became Opposition Leader…
Mr Rudd has shifted about 10per cent of 25- to 34-year-olds into Labor’s column, and more than 15 per cent of part-time workers — a sign that Work Choices is still biting.
The Government is viewed by younger voters as arrogant and lacking in energy, according to the qualitative polling which seeks the reasons behind the hard numbers.
Younger voters see John Howard as losing his nerve and not reacting well to pressure, the research says. Mr Rudd, on the other hand, is rated as energetic and enthusiastic and wins applause for appearing cool under pressure, unlike his predecessors — Kim Beazley, Mark Latham and Simon Crean…
The Coalition research suggests that the Government risks losing office in good economic times, in part, because of a bottom-up backlash from workers who were too young to remember the last recession in 1990-91.
Concerns about climate change and Work Choices appear to be two of the triggers for the youth revolt.
The Coalition’s slump in the 18-34 year age cohort can be seen in the next graph of Newspoll’s quarterly polling. The graph plots the net primary vote for the Coalition from people in the 18-34 year age cohort. In the June 2007 quarter, Labor was ahead by 23 percentage points.
