The end of extremes: How the generational divide redrew politics in 2025

The 2025 federal election will be remembered not merely for its result, but for the symbolic fall of two ideological opposites: Peter Dutton and Adam Bandt.

Both men entered the campaign representing vastly different visions of Australia’s future, yet exited politics victims of the same force, a generational and demographic realignment that is reshaping the country’s political landscape.

Their defeats signal the end of an era dominated by rigid ideological purity and the emergence of a more generationally conscious, pragmatically aligned electorate. Peter Dutton’s political career was forged in the twilight of the Howard era, an era where “middle Australia” was defined primarily through the lens of older, suburban Baby Boomers. His final campaign, however, clung to a version of the electorate that has been slowly fading from view.

Dutton’s political persona, policies, and campaign tone sought to animate a base increasingly confined to regional Australia and older Australians, while largely alienating the groups that are now at the heart of electoral power: Millennials, Gen Z, renters, diverse Australians, and university-educated women.

Dutton’s pitch was built on cultural grievance, law-and-order rhetoric, and a refusal to acknowledge
the concerns of a younger, more pluralistic generation.

His opposition to the Indigenous Voice to Parliament and continued focus on issues such as immigration control and climate policy obstructionism were not just policy positions, they became emblematic of a deeper resistance to Australia’s demographic evolution.

The strategy might have once resonated in a country where Baby Boomers were the largest electoral bloc. In 2025 however, those born after 1980 made up more than 42 per cent of enrolled voters and that cohort rejected Dutton’s vision overwhelmingly. In key outer-suburban seats, areas with high proportions of young families, migrants, and renters, the Coalition’s vote collapsed. This collapse wasn’t just due to policy; it was existential. Younger Australians, particularly Millennials and Gen Z, didn’t see themselves in Dutton’s campaign. Many had spent the past decade grappling with stagnant wages, insecure housing, climate anxiety, and rising living costs. Dutton offered nostalgia. They were asking for solutions.

The electorate didn’t only punish the Right. The Greens, under Adam Bandt, also suffered losses, and notably, Bandt himself lost his seat in inner-city Melbourne. The Greens’ strategy this past term leaned heavily into activist politics, framing their approach through moral absolutism, often disconnected from the real-life material concerns of the very people they claimed to represent.

Their focus on radical housing reforms, environmental maximalism, and aggressive opposition tactics in parliament often felt more attuned to the ethos of student unions than the complex, negotiated politics of a diverse nation in economic stress.

In doing so, the Greens made two strategic errors. First, they mistook the online volume of youth activism for real-world electoral breadth. Second, they failed to recognise the maturation of the Millennial vote.

The same generation that once marched for climate justice is now trying to buy homes, raise families, and navigate the childcare system. Older Millennials in particular, now in their late 30s and 40s, were receptive to progressive values, but not to the Greens’ often performative radicalism. They shifted towards Labor not because they abandoned their ideals, but because Labor presented a more stable, socially cohesive path to reform.

Labor’s resurgence in this election was not driven by nostalgia or ideology but by a clear and targeted appeal to the lived experiences of generational Australia.

Across the nation, Labor’s strongest two-party preferred support came from Millennials and Gen Z, university-educated progressives, renters, and migrant communities.

In Victoria, Labor polled 61 per cent among Gen Z and Millennials; 65 per cent among university-educated voters in this group; and 62 per cent among renters. These voters saw in Labor not perfection, but a vehicle for change that was realistic, inclusive, and aware of the compromises required to govern.

This result reflects a broader shift taking place across Western democracies, one in which younger, more diverse, and more economically insecure voters are demanding that politics reflect their realities.

These voters are less loyal to major parties, more values-driven, but increasingly sceptical of ideological purity when it comes at the expense of outcomes. They want action on climate change, yes, but not at the cost of social division or political inertia. They want housing reform, but they also want results, not just slogans shouted across parliamentary benches.

The fall of Bandt and Dutton also underlines a growing political truism in Australia: electoral success no longer hinges on appealing to the loudest ideological fringes but on understanding the generational centre.

For the Coalition, that means letting go of a base-first strategy obsessed with culture wars and reclaiming economic relevance among younger voters. The obsession with resurrecting the 2019 playbook, believing in mythical preference flows from One Nation or assuming younger Australians would abandon Labor over gas projects, revealed just how disconnected the conservative strategy had become from the new demographic reality.

In Melbourne, the Coalition’s primary vote among Millennials (minus Boomers) hovered in the high teens. In Sydney, it barely reached the low 30s.

For the Greens, it means reimagining themselves not as permanent outsiders but as contributors to tangible reform. The romanticism of protest politics must be tempered by an understanding that many of their potential voters, especially older Millennials and young families, now crave stability and collective problem-solving more than street theatre or political grandstanding.

Ultimately, this election showed that Australia’s political future will not be shaped by extremes but by the preferences and pragmatism of a generation that has grown up in the shadow of crisis — economic, environmental, and social. Millennials and Gen Z voters aren’t apolitical. They’re deeply political. They’re also deeply impatient with political actors who refuse to evolve.

Peter Dutton represented the ghosts of Australia’s past, a parochial, monocultural electorate that once held enormous power but is now fading demographically. Adam Bandt, in contrast, represented an imagined political future, one of radical grassroots upheaval without the necessary groundwork to expand beyond a niche. Both misread the moment.

In their place, a new political centre is being formed, not centrist in ideology, but in generational perspective. It is multiracial, values-based, economically anxious but socially tolerant. It is a centre that demands results and rejects the notion that leadership must be animated by extremes to be authentic.

The fall of Dutton and Bandt is not merely a story of individual failure. It is a generational reckoning and a warning to those who seek to lead this country without first understanding the people who will define its future.

Kosmos Samaras is a leading political strategist and director at RedBridge Group, one of Australia’s foremost research and campaign consultancies. With decades of experience in public affairs, electoral analysis, and grassroots campaigning, Kosmos is known for his deep insights into voter behaviour, demographic shifts, and the evolving landscape of Australian politics. He previously served as a senior political operative, playing a pivotal role in state and federal election campaigns across the country. Kosmos grew up in Broadmeadows, Victoria, and brings a working-class lens to his analysis, grounded in lived experience and a deep understanding of Australia’s outer-suburban and multicultural communities.