Political Voices: Past, Present and Future

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.

I chart the demographics underling the decline in the attached
🔗 PDF – Political Voices Past, Present and Future

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 🔗Map showing the potential impact of Voices candidates in 2022.

The computed predicted Voices 2CP votes for Sydney (left) and Melbourne (right