ACCORDING to an Australian National University (ANU) study, changes in voting demographics at the last election spell trouble going forward for the Coalition, who need to regain the female, younger and educated vote.

The joint ANU poll/Comparative Study of Electoral Systems survey compared how people voted between the 2019 and 2022 federal elections.

It also measured voter intentions from mid-April and late-May at the start of the campaign for 2022, compared with satisfaction immediately post-election which showed that Australians felt more positive about the direction the country would take following Labor’s win.

From a survey of more than 3500 voters, age and level of education were the two most prominent factors that drove the impetus for a change in government for the first time since 2013.

Females were less likely to vote for the Coalition compared to males, but the largest difference in voting patterns by gender was that 22.5 per cent of females voted for the Greens compared to 16.4 per cent of males.

Co-author of the study, Professor Nicholas Biddle, said age and education were the two key demographics “driving Labor’s path to victory” at the ballot box.

“More than one in three voters aged under 55, 34.9 per cent, who voted for the Coalition in 2019 ended up voting for someone else,” he said.

Around one in five, 21.1 per cent, aged 55 or older did the same.

The study also showed that the Coalition lost more votes among people with higher levels of education.

“Around one in three people, 31.0 per cent, who had completed year 12 and voted for the Coalition in 2019 voted for another party in 2022,” Dr Biddle said.

“This is in stark contrast to former Coalition voters who had not completed year 12.

“We found only 14.8 per cent of this group changed their vote in 2022.”

Young Australians were more likely to have voted for Labor and substantially more likely to vote for the Greens.

Coalition voters tended to be older, non-Indigenous, with low education, living outside of capital cities and with a household income that puts them outside of the bottom income bracket.

The Liberal Party lost several long held traditional blue ribbon seats, including Kooyong, Goldstein, North Sydney, Mackellar, Wentworth and Curtin to teal independents, while Higgins, Reid, Boothby and Bennelong were lost to the Labor.

The Australian Electoral Commission reported that only 68.3 per cent of voters gave their first preference to one of the major parties, and that the record low vote reflects a significant repositioning in Australian voting.

Dr Biddle said it was going to be very difficult to see them win back those electorates they lost.

“I can’t see them winning in the future, given the trends in education attainment and the fact that the Australian population group continues to not vote for the Coalition,” he said.

“It will be interesting to see whether the Coalition feels that it’s able to win back the highly educated, or whether it focuses on consolidating its votes for those with relatively low levels of education.”