The Post: A shift in voting power and how to give young voters hope

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Farewell, fees-free, we hardly knew you. The policy of waiving one year of tertiary education charges, placed on the political chopping block this week, was a sad, short-lived symbol of the worst of the Ardern era.

Making tertiary courses completely free, as many European countries do, might have been transformative: a bold statement about the societal value of higher study that could also have allayed poorer households’ debt fears. The half-hearted offer of just one year’s discount achieved none of that.

Its abolition, though, begs a bigger question: what hope can politics offer young people in this uncertain world? The coming generations face limited job prospects, large debts, unaffordable housing, and severe anxiety about runaway climate change and AI.

Fees-free, for all its faults, did at least attempt to soften that dynamic. And although some young people appear to have lost all hope, there are still political rewards for the party that can speak to that generation and those fears.

We tend to think of politics as dominated by Baby Boomers, but those born in the two decades from 1946 will conceivably make up no more than 900,000 eligible voters this year. Over one million adults, by contrast, might be Millennials, currently aged 30-45, with a further 800,000 or so Gen Zers aged 18 to 29.

Even allowing for historically lower turnout rates among young voters, there could plausibly be more Millennials going to the ballot box than there are Baby Boomers. This could mark an epochal shift in politics – but only if parties give those younger generations something to vote for.

Not everything that worries young people, of course, has an immediate solution. Take house prices, currently around six times average incomes, according to the Interest site.

No politician is going to crash the housing market overnight, so the only semi-plausible hope of restoring affordability would be a gradual, one-percent-a-year decline in prices. Assuming normal wage growth, that would return average house prices to roughly three times average incomes – the traditional benchmark of affordability – by around 2040.

That’s still a long way off. But signalling intent – talking openly of lowering prices, as housing minister Chris Bishop has bravely done, or freeing up more inner-city land for development – would at least show young people that help is on its way.

Politicians could also make long-term renting a more secure option, although Bishop’s reinstatement last year of no-fault evictions, allowing tenants to be evicted without any reason, was a retrograde step.

Another deep well of concern for young people – and one that, alongside unaffordable housing, explains why so many have left for Australia – is the struggle to find work.

Currently, one young person in seven – that is, 14.4% of those aged 15-24 – is a NEET: not in education, employment or training. Having hit its highest level since the GFC some 17 years ago, this is a figure that should have the Beehive’s alarm bells ringing wildly.

Yet the Government’s response thus far has fallen short. When I spoke to young West Auckland jobseekers for a research project last year, they described the dispiriting effect of being forced to fruitlessly apply for role after role.

One told me: “Eventually, over time, you lose hope. You develop a [negative] mindset.” But if they didn’t submit those applications, they risked having their benefit cut.

This is how our welfare system fails young people: too much punishment, too little support. And that’s why the think-tank where I work, IDEA, has proposed a “circuit-breaker” job guarantee: a temporary, state-funded job placement at a firm, NGO or government agency, to be made available to the 5000 or so youths who’ve been unemployed for over a year.

The idea is to break the incipient cycle of long-term joblessness by offering those young people something positive: work, its related routines and disciplines, CV points, the chance to learn on the job, and, above all, a much-needed confidence boost. Similar schemes overseas have lifted long-term employment rates by as much as 27% and had a hugely positive return on investment.

The savings from scrapping fees-free could easily be redirected towards such a scheme. And as AI starts to eat into young people’s job prospects, we’re going to need more initiatives to bridge the gap between 21-year-olds’ core skills and the advanced roles that will increasingly dominate the job market.

That bridge could be provided by longer diplomas and enhanced apprenticeships, all paid for by some combination of the state and the firms that benefit from AI’s efficiencies. And if, as above, house prices fall, sparking greater investment in economically productive businesses, there might be more jobs available in the first place.

Whatever the exact policy mix, though, the underlying point remains clear. Politicians have to offer young people a reason for hope – and with it a reason to vote. Otherwise they can expect to see an ever-growing number of one-way plane trips to Australia.