Young voices screaming to be heard on climate

Climate activists are calling on political parties to engage with the needs of younger voters in the lead up to the August 21 election.

The Australian Youth Climate Coalition (AYCC) say younger voters are frustrated by a lack of commitment to tackle climate change by the major political parties.

“The AYCC believes that all voters, and especially young voters, are looking for leadership on climate change,” Lucy Manne from the AYCC said. “So far climate inaction has claimed two Prime Ministers – John Howard and Kevin Rudd – and yet neither of the major parties have announced credible climate policies.”

Ms Manne says the AYCC have recently seen an increase in its membership base as younger voters continue to seek a stronger mandate on climate change.

 “The AYCC has seen a large growth in membership this year, particularly on facebook and twitter,” she said. “The AYCC encouraged young people to enroll to vote through emails to our database of 53,000 members and updates on our social networking pages.”

 But enrolment figures may hold the answer to why the needs of younger voters have been left out of the election debate.

 Crikey blogger Possum Comitatus from ‘Pollytics’ said that an increase in the enrolments of voters between the ages of 18-24 would make little difference to the overall Two Party Preferred (TPP) vote between Labor and the Liberal Party.

 “If just under 54,000 young people got on the roll between July 1 and Monday July 19 (when the rolls closed), 18-24 enrolment would hit the 80 per cent level … at this level the ALP would expect to get around a 0.03% boost to their TPP, maybe up to 0.05% if historical voting patterns were repeated,” Possum wrote on the Pollytics blog.

The latest figures from the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) show that 1, 507, 552 people between the age of 18 and 24 are enrolled to vote in the upcoming election. But over the entire population, only 85, 996 people enrolled to vote after Julia Gillard announced the election date.

 While the youth vote doesn’t represent a large proportion of the more than 14 million voters, the AYCC say it is still a significant voice.

 Lucy Manne hopes that as both the major parties scramble for votes in the coming weeks of the campaign, the focus will shift to the needs of younger voters.

 “It’s about ensuring young Australians have a say in the issues that will define their future – issues like climate change,” she said.