|
|
Here is a very pertinent article on The Punch about how neither of the significant political parties are offering incentives for young people to cast a vote for them.
Young voters trampled in stampede for family vote
The Punch, 12th August 2010
"To the 100,00-odd, predominately young voters, who courtesy of Get-Up, will be making their first quivering steps towards the polling booth in a couple of weeks - let me apologise on behalf of the two major parties.
They’re just not that into you.
For both Labor and the Coalition, the love is gone for younger voters. In fact, the two major parties seem to have forgotten these voters whose sway at the ballot box last time around was lauded as having helped unseat a decades-old reigning political force in their mad scramble for the “family” vote.
We are in the midst of a campaign where no baby is safe from being mauled in front of the nation’s media and our shopping centres are haunted by pamphlet-proffering politicians secreting family-friendly policies out of every pore.
This campaign has been dominated by a particularly desperate grasping for the votes of the so-called “Howard Battlers”. Unmoored from allegiance with either party, this nebulous group of supposedly aspirational lower and lower-middle class voters has been hunted like soon-to-be-extinct prey by Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott.
Both of the campaigns have firmly placed the traditional family at the centre of the political narrative.
Appealing to Mum’s and Dad’s hip pockets as they tour the country sharing “ordinary Australians’” concerns about mortgages and school uniforms and paying for that holiday to the Sunshine Coast, Gillard and Abbott have neglected anything but a cursory nod to those voters whose lives face different challenges...."
Click here to go to the full article on The Punch's website.
|
|
|
