I caught up with John Stanley from 2GB/4BC on Tuesday night for an informal chat about an election review article I’d written for the Australian Financial Review on Monday. Here is a .pdf link to that page.
John and I talked about demographic and political events and themes over the timeline since the May 21, Federal 2022 election, including the curious cases of State and Federal leaders from supposedly opposing parties, and why they manage to share what, for them and their constituents, can be a mutually beneficial political relationship, as Frenemies.
As I was often told when I was a member of the Australian Senate: Your enemies aren’t the ones sitting opposite you mate, they’re the ones behind you.
I’ve just finished writing a longer piece for the AFR on the long term Australian demographic trends dominating Federal politics now and into the next decade, which is in the AFR Easter Edition today. I hope you enjoy it.
🎓I put on my Education Geographics hat today to write an opinion piece for the Australian Financial Review for Tuesday’s paper and you’ll find it now in the online edition on this link (behind the paywall):
The story discusses the choices confronting all parents when they choose a school for their kids. Essentially, my experience profiling schools over the last 20 years doing hundreds of detailed school profiles points to the balance between aspiration and affordability as being the key determinant of school choice. 🏣
As more women have entered the workforce during the last two decades, they have been able to afford a greater range of choices for their kids, across the three sectors. You can see that in the little chart here on Australian Female Participation Rates and Independent School Market share. As the female jobs increased, so did Independent Market Share. It’s the job itself that pays the school fees and the actual size of the pay check is not as significant.
Profiling of the Voices 2019 demographics by Australian Development Strategies shows that grassroots campaigns by Voices candidates against Liberals in 2022 – led by professional women – could be even more devastating for Labor MPs if turned against them in 2025.
This means that the Federal election of 2022 is not so much a contest between the Liberal Party and the Labor Party, but more a contest about what future Labor and Liberal Governments will look like.
In the mid-1980’s, male Tradespersons was the biggest single male or female occupation group in Australia and Tradies dominated the ALP voting profile, and Female Professionals played an equally important role for the Liberal voting profile.
But both major parties have been challenged in 2022 by the loss of their historical bases of primary vote support during the past 40 years, among Tradies and Miners for Labor, and among Professionals for the Liberals.
The problem for both major parties is that, by November 2021, Female Professionals was the biggest single male or female occupation group in Australia and there were twice as many Professional Persons as Tradespersons, Clerks or Service Workers. And their vote is up for grabs.
Coalition candidates in 2022 are vulnerable to well-funded and more professionally-managed “Voices” campaigns run by local activists, particularly when factionalised party machines select a favourite candidate with a negative personal vote, as this gives a leg-up to a Voices campaign.
Australian Development Strategies Modelling of booth-level profiles in a selection of Urban and Rural 2019 seats won or strongly contested by Independent or Green candidates, shows Voices candidates attracted support from some fast-growing demographics, including Agnostics and better-educated, professional women.
Economic trends infer the current demographic base of Voices candidates is likely to grow over time and, with a Labor win likely in 2022, this base could prove a bigger threat to Labor in 2025 than it is to the Liberals in 2022
Our ADS Senior Mapper Dr Jeanine McMullan has a 🔗Mapshowing the potential impact of Voices candidates in 2022.
The computed predicted Voices 2CP votes for Sydney (left) and Melbourne (right
.pdf link to that page.
