by Sahar Foladi
Shackled by cost-of-living stress, young voters appear to be searching for options other than the two major parties.
Star News caught up with voters at Dandenong Stadium on late Tuesday afternoon as many dropped by after work to cast their vote ahead of election day on Saturday 3 May.
While some may be there just to tick off their name and avoid the fine, others know exactly of who to vote for.
Cost of living pressures, mortgage spike and the lack of employment opportunities for young people remain a major issue.
A first-generation immigrant in Australia, one young voter was made redundant three times within four years from white collar office jobs,
On top of that, she said she had to grapple with the soaring cost of living.
“That’s affected me greatly, so I’ve had my salary bounce around, up and down for years, and I’m just trying to balance that out along with the cost of living.
“Seeing the responses that we saw from the Liberal Party around the pandemic and everything that came after that, it’s just hurt a lot.”
She calls herself a socialist who will vote for the Greens party because of their diversity, inclusion and LGBTIQ policies although she says the Greens can’t bring change to her living condition.
“I like to think of myself as a realist. I think their policies are good, they align with me but actions speak louder than words and the Greens don’t have a really great track history of it.”
She says the two major parties Labor and Liberal are “pretty out of touch at the moment.”
She and a few more voters said they like independent candidates such as Monique Ryan, the ‘teal’ MP for Kooyong.
Another young male, Kalim Korug is a graduate with a degree in Bachelor of Business.
He is struggling to find employment in logistics and supply chain management and currently works as a container unloader.
Things are “not too bad” as both Kamil and his father work to keep up with the expenses but he’s thinking of taking a second job at a warehouse as a pick packer.
“The cost of living is a bit hard, it’s a bit rough. A lot of people have to get like two jobs to even survive, so even myself, I’m getting a second job for afternoons, just to get by.
“We’ve had times where it’s a bit rough. If I was not working, it’d be like extremely tough for us, but we’re getting by – it’s not too bad yet.”
The family are lucky enough to be renting at their family friend’s house “with no stress.”
Another voter, a diesel mechanic lined up straight after work. He said he’d previously voted for the Labor Party but today he’d vote for the Legalise Cannabis Party as he doesn’t “see the harm in it and it’s doing a lot of good, so why not?”
Although he was undecided on who to vote for, he leaned towards Labor and so did Sajida Ahmadi, a 19-year-old and Brenda 21-year-old.
Sajida said Labor “has done a lot” for their community.
Her family work hard at their family restaurant in central Dandenong.
Her parents work from 7:30am until 5pm with her brothers working from 11am until after midnight to keep up with the mortgage payments.
Brenda on the other hand is a nursing student who works in aged care.
With four full-time employees in the family, they’re able to sustain themselves with the mortgage.
