The response to a piece I wrote for the SMH/Age recently has been very interesting in a number of ways. It has also been very revealing. I have been called a “dog”, been accused of rewriting history and of “letting the side down”. Every one of the responses had ignored the basic premise of my article. I wrote about the generational change in my family and my friend’s families that has seen young people abandon Labor and turn to the Greens in frustration. It’s not that they are necessarily attracted to the Greens; it is that, for young people, there is no alternative.
Young people no longer see the Labor Party as the party of protest as young people once did. It doesn’t invigorate them the way it invigorated their parents (or grandparents) in years gone by. They are frustrated by Labor. They have zero interest in the machinations of the factions. They want action on, say, climate change and they want it now. The debate on whether it is politically expedient to close a coal mine doesn’t resonate. Any more than the argument to gradually end the Vietnam War didn’t resonate nearly 50 years ago. Or that apartheid could be gradually phased out.
The “It’s Time” campaign in 1972 offered hope. Hope for a better future. It offered ideas and idealism. Young people are passionate by nature. They want things to change. They are impatient with the tired old excuses that are trotted out to explain inaction. One of the great things about Gough Whitlam and the Whitlam Government was that it drew a line in the sand about a number of issues and said,
“Enough is enough. We want change. And we want it now”.
Some of the issues that they campaigned for aren’t that far away from the issues that concern young people today. Equal rights, gender equality, Australian independence. An awareness of the environment and the impact mining companies were having on it. Neil Young sang After the Gold Rush in 1970. It encapsulated the way a lot of young people who rallied behind the “It’s Time” cause felt about the environment.
“Look at Mother Nature on the run in the 1970s”
He’s had to update it to,
“Look at Mother Nature on the run in the 20th Century”
Now it’s,
“Look at Mother Nature on the run in the 21st Century”
In 2024, young people feel that their parents and grandparents have failed them as climate change threatens their future. Those who followed Greta Thunberg out of their classes and onto the streets to protest about climate change feel that Labor hasn’t been strong enough in opposing mining interests and, in particular, coal mining. The Greens appeal to them because they are vocal in their opposition to coal and gas mining. Whatever the political reality of this, the Greens have been able to present a “take no prisoners” approach to dealing with climate change. Labor’s playing it safe and appeasing the fossil fuel industry has cost it support from young people, as well as many older ones.
It doesn’t matter to young people that the Greens can oppose with impunity because they don’t have to govern. Like the Whitlamites, they are fired up. An enduring image from those times is Whitlam towering over Little Pattie singing the “It’s Time” anthem with her and a collection of TV stars and celebrities. The current Labor Party seems incapable of garnering this kind of passionate support because it is so timid.
When university students protested about the Israeli attacks on Gaza in support of innocent Palestinians, Labor failed to support them and hedged their bets, fearful of the Jewish lobby. This may have seemed to be politically expedient, but it further reinforced the view young people had of a government that was afraid to speak out about causes it believes in. Contrast their response to Bob Hawke’s reaction to the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989. His open support of the young Chinese dissidents struck a chord with young Australians and they supported him at the polls.
There are any number of issues where Labor has failed to engage young people by being too careful or not taking a stand. Young people don’t read the newspapers. They don’t read opinion pieces. They get most of their news from social media. The recent dithering about the census recognising LGBTQI+ people is a case in point. All young people saw was that rights they assumed had been overwhelmingly supported in the Marriage Equality legislation that was passed in 2017 were not being extended to the census, thus relegating LGBTQI+ people to second class citizens.
The current housing shortage and the associated steepling rental costs confronting young people are another example of why they are turning to the Greens who offer what some might call “pie in the sky” solutions, but are, at least, taking the issue seriously. The AUKUS deal might please the members of the Labor Right but it doesn’t make any sense for many young people at a time when they are struggling to pay the rent. When the Greens’ MP Max Chandler-Mather says his Party is the “party of renters”, it strikes a chord with other young renters.
Anthony Albanese’s call to limit social media usage for young people might have a lot of support from a lot of people, but for many young people it is seen as yet another attack on them. “No snapchat for teens” is their how outrage is expressed on social media.
Young people have always been at the forefront of social change. The “It’s Time” generation are now grandparents and their grandchildren are demanding more from their politicians in just the same way as they did back in the 1970s.
Neil Manning’s latest novel.
Ned Manning
Ned’s plays have been produced in Australia and overseas. His plays are performed and studied in schools throughout Australia.
Ned was the first Australian playwright to write about the Stolen Generation when he wrote Close to the Bone with his students at the Eora Centre for Aboriginal Visual and Performing Arts in Redfern. Close to the Bone toured NSW and has had a number of productions throughout the country. His follow up play on the same subject, Luck of the Draw, was the first play written by a white writer to be produced by Queensland’s Indigenous theatre company, Kooemba Jdaraa.
As an actor, Ned has appeared in some of Australia’s most loved film, television and theatre productions including: Looking for Alibrandi, Offspring, The Shiralee, Bodyline, Aftershocks, The Sullivans, Home and Away and Neighbours. He played the lead role in the 1980’s cult classic, Dead End Drive-In.
His most recent performance was in the Foxtel series Mr Inbetween in 2021.