Shocked young voters could save Rudd

First Tony Abbott called this election a "referendum on the carbon tax". Then, when Kevin Rudd returned, Michael Gawenda quite rightly called it a referendum on Rudd (Roll up for the great Rudd referendum, August 14).

Kim Carr got the idea and called it a referendum on manufacturing. And yesterday Anthony Albanese, not to be upstaged, said it was a referendum on broadband and digital communications.

Whew. With so many referenda running at once, what’s the poor voter to do?

If you like the carbon tax, loathe Rudd, love broadband and don’t give a stuff about manufacturing, you’ll be tempted to draw a giant cock-and-balls on your ballot paper and make the election a referendum on referenda by voting informally.

And if you really do this, you’re probably a young voter.

To younger Australians, manufacturing isn’t sexy. Broadband and carbon pricing are. And for some strange reason Kevin Rudd used to be, but isn’t now.

Young voters overwhelmingly support gay marriage. Strange in some ways – in more counter-cultural decades youngsters asked why we needed marriage at all – now everyone seems to be required to do it. Yet Rudd’s backwards somersault on this issue means he’s won at least that issue with young voters (Rudd riding the rainbow flag?, August 18).

But does it matter what the kiddies think? 

Well actually, it does. A study released last week by the Whitlam Institute found that voters aged 18 to 34, comprising 26.4 per cent of registered voters, are far more fluid in their voting patterns than older voters.

The study’s author, Ron Brooker of the University of Western Sydney, found in a previous research project that “young people are attached to issues and are not ‘joiners’ of the established political organisations such as political parties or trades unions”.

Their fluidity in voting patterns means they are more likely to “accentuate the potential electoral impact of political moments: the capacity for a particular event to ignite a quick and dramatic shift in political sentiment”.

It’s telling that the major parties have supplied their two most yoof-friendly figures to give lengthy interviews on the ABC’s youth radio service, Triple J.

Last week it was Malcolm Turnbull explaining to the host of the Hack program, Tom Tilley, why he had once angrily said that any climate policy other than carbon trading would be a "fig leaf" to avoid climate action, but now thinks Greg Hunt’s Direct Action plan is actually pretty good.

Turnbull also tried to explain why putting bar-fridge-sized cabinets on street corners would deliver fast enough broadband much more quickly that Labor’s plan. (Epic fail dude! If you want the youth vote, put actual bar fridges on street corners filled with drinks that don’t incur Kevin Rudd’s alcopop tax.)

Yesterday evening Labor rolled out its previous series winner of political pop idol – Kevin Rudd – who’s determined to win the series again after being outdanced by Julia Gillard and her boyband of union leaders in 2010.

And what did Rudd open with? A lengthy spiel about the national broadband network. It’s what young people want, he said, and though its rollout in the early stages has been slow, passing not 950,000 premises by June of this year but just 160,000, he’s still sure we’ll all have it by 2021.

That’s important for young voters as it will arrive just in time to allow them to download all the pirated video content they’ll need when they accidentally have kids in their 30s. Sleepless bottle-feeding nights are much easier when you’re watching the Breaking Bad series for the fifth time.

Seriously though, if Labor’s slight comeback in the polls is to become a scraping-over-the-line win on September 7, something will have to sway this fluid vote.

It was not primarily young voters that switched allegiances at the time of the Tampa crisis, but Labor will be watching vigilantly for an event of a similar scale that can switch young voters to its side.

Speculating as to what that might be is almost impossible, but it would need a 'shock' event such as a racist, sexist or cruelly anti-refugee gaffe by Tony Abbott –  which is why it's doubtful whether Abbott will accept Triple J's request to appear on Hack.

If it arrives, party strategists will know it instantly. If it does not, there will most likely not be a referendum on referenda and no lewd drawings – just quite a few young people writing a ‘1’ next to their local Coalition candidate’s name.