9 February

At first glance this looks like a boring list of numbers. But this shows the age distribution of voters across all Australian electorates and States. It’s a window into who we really are as a country. If you look, what stands out is how in almost every electorate, the 60+ age group absolutely dominates voters. That’s the boomers. There are also summaries for each state in the coloured rows. We live in an old society. Is it surprising that so much of our politics is about what interests the elderly? Fear and anxiety of just about everything, xenophobia, law and order, enormous distributions of money to the old, punitive laws aimed at the young, and general conservatism and pining for the old days? Most of the mysteries of our crazy politics are explained by these demographics I think, not by looking at politicians. Politics and government are us. The old are desperately trying to resist the young and the new, and their own mortality. That’s the real battle front of our times, the Peter Pan generation versus the rest of us.