Eligible Australian citizens are on a deadline to ensure they are registered to vote for the May election and to make themselves sufficiently informed to make their decision on who should run the country.
With an election a few weeks away, politicians have been on the hustings wooing Australian voters, including those who have never voted before. However, not everyone is keeping up with the politics.
Vice President of the Shoalhaven Young Liberal Branch, Abbey Dawson said that young people are more likely to be disengaged with traditional methods of campaigning, and politics in general due to a lack of civic education prior to becoming eligible to vote.
“I think major parties need to be looking away from more traditional forms of campaigning methods – door knocking and phone canvassing – and looking into investing more time and money in new areas like social media and community events,” Miss Dawson said.
“With the baby boomer population now not being the majority of the voting population, political parties need to start to look at connecting to the population that don’t see politics as something they need to engage with.”
Source: https://www.aec.gov.au/enrolling_to_vote/enrolment_stats/type/2025/02.htm
According to the Australian Electoral Commission, less than 10 per cent of the total enrolled voting population are young people aged 18-24. It is a popular belief that their individual vote will have little to no impact on the outcome of an election, so many young people are asking themselves – why bother?
Source: https://www.aec.gov.au/Enrolling_to_vote/Enrolment_stats/performance/national-youth.htm
Studies dating back decades show that compulsory voting leads to a higher number of intentional and unintentional informal voting. More recent studies have attempted to correlate the increase in informal voting with the decrease in political interest amongst young voters.
Ms Dawson believes that there is change being made in terms of political address to the younger generation but feels there should be more done to promote civic engagement for a better future.
“I believe there should be more apolitical platforms that provide information about the impact of someone’s vote and what each candidate stands for,” Miss Dawson said.
“I think all high school students need to be set up with a minimum standards test regarding civic engagement.
“The more educated our population is around our political systems, then it will function to a much better standard.”
The election is on May 3.