Since its historic defeat at the last federal election, the Liberal party has been engaged in a frenetic search for its internal compass. What’s transpired has been less a course correction and more a series of sharp, haphazard turns: appointing its first ever female leader, walking away from net zero, reopening tensions with the Nationals, purging said female leader, and now pivoting towards One Nation voters with a hardline stance on immigration. If there’s a single unifying theme, it’s chaos.

Angus Taylor has declared his new shadow ministry will improve living standards and “protect” Australia’s way of life. But if you look at the voting trends from the last federal election, the Liberal party remains deeply out of step with modern Australia. And the Coalition is not doing well to mend relations with women and younger voters.

Let’s start with age. The Australian Election Study revealed a continued decline in support for the two major parties, with the Coalition suffering the brunt of that shift, securing just 32% of first‑preference votes overall. Among voters under 40, that figure fell to 23%. And among millennials (those born between 1981 and 1996) it was just 21%, down from 38% less than a decade earlier.

This matters because millennials and gen Z are a growing voter block who now make up 42% of the electorate.

What........

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