The party’s youth wing must radically change from a culturally homogenous group of privileged university students to one that embraces TAFE students and battlers,the Labor-aligned think tank urges.
“Over the past few generations,the children and grandchildren of working-class Australians
smashed by Paul Keating’s ‘recession we had to have’ of the early 1990s and who were buffeted by the[global financial crisis] and then COVID have given the finger to the ALP,” writes the think-tank’s director,Labor historian Nick Dyrenfurth.
“They too are angry at and alienated from the economic system which they feel is gamed against them,and progressive cultural obsessions which they feel ignore their primary needs,stuck in a loop of poorer educational outcomes,fewer training and job opportunities,unemployment or precarious employment and with no hope of becoming homeowners or renting on fair terms.”
Dyrenfurth said that “contrary to right-wing spin”,the shift was not being driven by so-called woke issues andthe culture wars.
“It’s the economy,stupid! And if we in Labor continue to think these young voters are the problem – implicitly stupid – they will deservedly punish us,” he wrote.
The paper cites examples from Europe and South America that show a rise in support for right-wing parties among young voters.