A survey of thousands of young Australians has found they are more interested in social and environmental issues than economic concerns, heading into the election.

The Australian Research Alliance for Children & Youth (ARACY), and a group called Youth Action, conducted a national survey of 3369 Australians aged between 12 and 25, between 4 April and 2 May.

The survey explored the voting intentions of young Australians, their views on which political issues require attention, as well as how important they saw the largest federal policy areas.

Respondents were asked to nominate three issues they wanted addressed in the 2016 election – an open-ended question to avoid bias, which allowed them to be unconstrained by predetermined responses.

It found young people are most interested in hearing Australia’s political leaders address questions to do with asylum seekers (21%), marriage equality (19%) and climate change (16%).

It also found that, when asked to rank a specific list of 10 key federal issues, education topped the list, with 61.7% saying it was “extremely important”, while respondents also gave an “extremely important” ranking to health (52.5%), the environment (51.4%) and social justice (51%).

The survey was conducted before a large increase in electoral enrolments in May lifted the number of voters aged under 25 to a record 1.66m.

Youth Action says the record youth vote means young Australians will have “an unprecedented role in determining the outcome in dozens of electorates across the country.”

“The recent surge in the number of young people enrolling to vote, which will result in a record number of young Australians voting on July 2, highlights just how important it is for politicians of all persuasions to genuinely engage with young people on the issues they care about,” the chief executive of Youth Action, Katie Acheson, said.

When asked who they intended to vote for, only a third of respondents had made their decision. Of those, 38% said they would support the Greens, 34% the Labor party and 22% nominated the Coalition.

Only 10% of young people indicated they weren’t interested in voting, a figure that dropped off with age. Just 4% of 20 to 25 year ­olds said they were not interested in voting.

More women answered the survey. There was little difference in survey response rates by age group but there was a much higher response from young women (60.3%) than young males (35.6%), with 4% indicating another gender identity or preferring not to say.

It also says 44% of respondents to the survey were from marginal electorates and 29.6% were from non-metropolitan areas.



The chief executive of the Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth, Dianne Jackson, said the research challenges the idea that young people vote as a block, because the issues they consider most important are influenced by factors such as gender, age, political preference and cultural heritage, as well as whether they live in regional or metropolitan areas, and marginal or safe electorates.

For instance, pro asylum seeker policy was the top issue in only three states and territories (New South Wales, Victoria and the Australian Capital Territory) and, even then, one third of ACT respondents said treatment of asylum seekers was the top issue as opposed to only one fifth of NSW and Victorian respondents.

Tasmania was the only state or territory to have climate change as the top issue.