Canberra: Younger and educated voters were instrumental in the Labor Party’s victory in Australia’s May 21 general election, a new survey revealed on Monday.
Labor Party leader Anthony Albanese claimed victory in the general electio1, ending the conservative coalition’s nine-year reign, reports Xinhua news agency.
In the survey, researchers from Australian National University (ANU) found voters’ age and their level of education were the key factors in Labor’s victory and a collapse in support for the Coalition.
“More than one in three voters aged under 55, 34.9 per cent, who voted for the Coalition in 2019 ended up voting for someone else. Around one in five, 21.1 per cent, aged 55 or older did the same,” Nicholas Biddle, co-author of the report, said in a statement.
“The coalition also lost more votes among people with higher levels of education. Around one in three people, 31.0 per cent, who had completed year 12 and voted for the coalition in 2019 voted for another party in 2022.
“Education, and particularly high school education, really matters when it comes to understanding this election result,” he added.
Of the 3,500 voters who participated in the survey, 35.2 per cent of females voted for Labor and 30 per cent for the coalition.
Among men the two major parties were more even, with 35.7 per cent voting Labor as their first preference and 34.2 per cent for the coalition.
Biddle said the survey also found voters were more optimistic about the direction of the country under the Albanese government, with 73.3 per cent of respondents either satisfied or very satisfied in May, up from 62.4 per cent in April.
“In fact, this is one of the highest levels of satisfaction we have seen since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic and the black summer bushfires of 2019/2020,” he said.
“In contrast, levels of satisfaction in April 2022 were some of the lowest, if not the lowest, we’ve seen over the same period.”
–IANS
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