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50s baby boomers swinging to labor vote

The Liberal and National parties, traditionally supported in general by older voters in the past, are beginning to lose many mature-aged voting numbers, according to a paper prepared by Macquarie University researcher, Ian Watson, for Australian Policy Online.

After analysing Australian voting patterns between 1987 and 2004 the study found that the gap favouring the Coalition parties by voters over 60 varied between five and 10 percentage points. There had also been a similar gap supporting the coalition in voters aged between 55 and 59. But between 1998 and 2004 the gap in the 50s age group “either disappeared or narrowed considerably”.

Mr Watson said that around the year 2000, Australian baby boomers had entered the older voting ranks and this appeared to have been reflected in a changing voting pattern. He said that younger voters under 40 favoured the ALP over the Coalition while those in the middle-aged groups between 40 and 59 “have a less clear-cut pattern in their voting intentions”.

Although voters over 60 still strongly favoured the Coalition the figures suggested that the overall trend with mature-aged voters – especially with people in their 50s – was to break down the old voting patterns. “They have turned away from the Coalition,” Mr Watson said.

“This coincides with a change in the composition of this age group. They are now made up of people born in the late 1940s and early 50s. If the sentiments of these baby boomers are still Whitlamesque, if they can remember an era when social reform flourished, and if their aversion to economic rationalism and hyper-individualism remains intact, then one can easily imagine that many of these voters will be hostile to the Coalition,” he said.

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