More than 1.2 million people have now completed ABC’s Vote Compass survey. The data found that many voters have shifting views on the environment, the cost-of-living and our relationship with the U.S.
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TVTranscript
00:00It feels like people are going into this election thinking about different things than they were
00:06to 2022. So the ABC's been running Vote Compass now for five election cycles. So we compared
00:12the data from this election to last election. And if we think back to 2022, not so long
00:17ago, but a really different climate. Inflation hasn't run away yet. The Ukraine-Russia war
00:23has just started. We're still sort of in the shadows of COVID and people went into that
00:28election. And according to Vote Compass respondents, their top issue of concern was the environment.
00:34It was a much bigger conversation there. We'd have some really big climate summits in the
00:38years leading up to that. Now this election, the top issue of concern for voters is cost
00:44of living. About a third of Vote Compass respondents said that it was even more pronounced amongst
00:49younger cohorts. So for those under 29, it went up even higher and it was the least pronounced
00:56in the over 65s. They were the ones who appeared to be feeling this crunch even less. Vote Compass
01:01found that about 45% of respondents said they were struggling to live on their current income.
01:08So perhaps going into this, there were a lot of people really thinking about their own hip
01:11pockets, family budgets, household expenses. And it's been interesting to see how maybe that
01:17focus has shifted views on other social or environmental issues. So on issues like immigration,
01:23fewer Vote Compass respondents wanted to see more immigrants coming into the country on environmental
01:29issues. There was a really significant drop in the number of people who said that they wanted much
01:34more done to reduce carbon emissions, dropping from 61% to 36% this year. So as we head to the
01:41polls, it seems like people are really thinking about those financial issues.
01:44And I imagine housing also played a pretty big part in that theme as well this time around.
01:48Yeah, housing was one of those top issues of concerns as well. And that wasn't even in
01:52that top 10 at the last 2022 election. So housing, economy, they're the big issues.
01:59Yeah, and that's what overshadowed perhaps the climate concerns that were held a couple of
02:03years ago. You mentioned young people there. We know that this election is going to have
02:07the largest cohort of millennials and Gen Zs this time around. So what were some of the
02:15themes that came through from younger voters? Really interesting as well, because they have
02:19their really distinct political leanings compared to the rest of the electorate, particularly young
02:24women. So 67% of women under the age of 29 who did Vote Compass described themselves as being
02:31left leaning. And that compares to about 52% of women from other generations. They were even more
02:38left wing than their male peers. About 50% of men under the age of 29 said that they would describe
02:44themselves as left leaning. And when we look at young women, on almost all of the sort of social
02:49issues, questions we asked around Indigenous rights, government intervention and issues, they were the
02:55most likely to be supportive. So you have this younger cohort that appears to be much more progressive.
03:02And the Australian election study that was done after 2022, it found that this Gen Z generation,
03:07so all Australians under the age of 29, were more progressive than other generations past.
03:13So it'll be interesting to see if the major parties are speaking to them, which politicians
03:17they're connecting to. They're obviously less likely to be watching TV, listening to the radio,
03:22reading newspapers. But we have seen that push this election from our politicians to try and be more
03:27on podcasts and YouTube. Influencers. But I was out shouting to a lot of young women and young men
03:33in this election campaign saying, trying to figure out who was speaking to them. And they said,
03:39look, we've seen the dancing on TikTok. We're not so convinced by politicians doing the daggy dancing,
03:45but we want policies that are really designed for us. And it seemed like there was this sense of
03:49frustration that there were policies being offered that would sort of tinker on the edges of those big
03:54issues like housing and economy. And they wanted really substantive change that they weren't really seeing.