00:00Is beer too expensive under elbow?
00:06The question of the day.
00:08Oliver and Abby aren't just curious about what their fellow students think.
00:12Come on, use the marker.
00:13They're trying to attract new members to the University of Wollongong's Liberal Club.
00:18Yes?
00:19Everyone's been engaged, especially with the cost of living crisis.
00:21I think the beer question has been bring it to the forefront.
00:24We got 20 sign ups yesterday.
00:26Yep, so if we can beat 20 today, that's like 40, that's amazing.
00:32Today there's stiff competition from other political clubs.
00:3614 bucks a schooner guys.
00:38Abby and Oliver might both vote for the coalition, but their views aren't always the same.
00:43I guess I'm a little bit more socially left than what Ollie is.
00:49Trump's a big one.
00:50I'm a bit more pro-Trump than Abby is.
00:53That whole women's rights to their own body is kind of my thing.
00:56I believe that women should choose what they can do with their body.
01:00With the rise of Trump, women being a bit more scared to vote right because they believe
01:05they affiliate the right with Trump.
01:07I think we've just got to understand and have a little bit more political literacy around
01:11what each party stands for.
01:14Attracting young women can be a challenge for them.
01:18Social media being a really big influence with our generation, less and less women are
01:22wanting to join just because they're afraid of backlash I guess.
01:25I love how they have Trump on the poster.
01:30For Oliver, it's a different story.
01:32He knows exactly what cast him into the world of politics.
01:37My introduction to politics was in 2016 with Donald Trump.
01:40And it was just raw, off the cuff, and he just went with it.
01:43And I thought that was a really good value to have in a politician, someone who says
01:48what they're thinking.
01:49His social media is full of political content, lots of it to do with Trump or other conservative
01:54figures and he thinks it's probably different to what his female friends are viewing.
01:59A lot of my female friends are a lot more accepting and opening to social issues and
02:04social justice.
02:05I think men are a lot more sceptical and I think they're a lot more black and white in
02:09how they think.
02:10For this generation, their algorithms could shape their political choices.
02:16We've seen the advent of social media platforms and the echo chambers it creates.
02:22It can often lead to people segregating into communities of like-minded people.
02:29At elections around the world, from the US to Germany, Poland to South Korea, young men
02:35have thrown their support behind right-wing and populist leaders.
02:40Part of that is thought to be fuelled by conversations and content that's happening on social media
02:45and podcasts.
02:46But is this sort of gender divide happening in Australia?
02:51According to the 2022 Australian election study, a little over a quarter of Gen Z voted
02:56for the Coalition, with the majority voting for the Greens or Labor.
03:01It found this cohort was actually more progressive than other generations at the same age, but
03:06across all stages of life, men were more likely to vote for parties on the right.
03:14At this pub in the Illawarra south of Sydney, there's a different kind of gender divide
03:19between the decided and the undecided.
03:21Do you know who you're going to vote for?
03:24I haven't really thought about it.
03:26Yeah, me too.
03:27You guys?
03:28Well, I usually vote Greens.
03:29Yeah, me too.
03:30I'd vote Greens and Labor.
03:31Well, my parents voted for the Greens and I feel like they have good morals for the
03:38people, like look after the people, and I just would not want Liberals to win.
03:45Is there anything that you care about when you're voting?
03:49My future in terms of buying a house, what career I'm going to be in, what I'm going
03:55to do for the rest of my life.
03:56And I don't know if that's reflected by anyone, so, you know, I don't want to make the wrong
04:01call, but I don't know which call the right one is.
04:04The cost of more than just a beer on the minds of these young and undecided voters.
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