This election will not be decided by modern issues or fashionable personalities. It will not be aimed at the nation's future. It will be about living in the past.

The 2016 election will be decided more than any other by Australia's elderly.

Voters aged under 24 skew 61-39 towards Labor on a two-party preferred basis in the latest Fairfax-Ipsos opinion poll. Credit:iStock

We have seen a surge in the share of voters aged 65 and over – wartime children and now baby boomers, many of whom once burnt bras, voted for Whitlam, had a day off work when Alan Bond won the America's Cup in 1983 but then backed John Howard, pocketed huge superannuation tax breaks from the mining boom, banked capital gains from home ownership and negative gearing, and can afford to say now that 70 is the new 50.

This shift means that even if the voices of today's young'uns are heard on July 2, they will be drowned out by a much older group who don't go for politically savvy social media but do vote early. Postal and pre-poll votes, which open next Tuesday, will determine many seats.