of British-Australia, demonstrated in the referendum, is very promising for the Labor side electorally. In addition to this, the steady and more or less inexorable increase in tertiary education among Australians is a potential electoral plus for the progressive side of politics. В
Their use of New Class rhetoric indicates that the conservative side of politics is bleeding electorally
There has recently been an energetic outburst, emanating basically from the conservative side of politics, alleging that people with tertiary education, now approaching 20 per cent of the adult population, represent some kind of "New Class", with interests basically different to those of "ordinary Australians", who the conservatives claim to represent.
The close referendum result underlines why the conservatives are so alarmed by these demographic developments. On many issues there clearly is a new social factor emerging in electoral politics. The steady rise in the educational level of the population produces a kind of potential "Education dividend" for the progressive side in politics if it is prepared to argue a case energetically before an increasingly well-educated electorate.
This showed up during the referendum campaign in the interesting exercise of getting a few hundred ordinary Australians into Old Parliament House in Canberra and having a debate on the republic proposal, in which those ordinary Australians were themselves involved, over a couple of days. By the end of that process, the republic side had dramatically improved its support among that group of people.
The problem the conservatives have is that the steady increase in the educational level of Australians tends to work against them electorally. All the nasty rhetoric that they use about the New Class has its real origin in this set of circumstances.
The steady increase in the educational level of Australians is ongoing and inexorable. This continuing improvement in the educational level constantly undermines and diminishes the scope of one of the traditional weapons of conservative politics, which is the exploitation of, and appeal to, all sorts of cultural and educational backwardness. When you add to this the continuing electoral effect of past, present and future immigration, and intermarriage between different ethnic and cultural groups in Australia, the electoral difficulties for the conservative side in politics are likely to further increase.
The angry Labor voters who voted No to the republic in outer-suburban areas and provincial cities because of their antagonism to political and business elites will inevitably swing back to Labor at some further point in the political cycle, which will almost certainly be reached very soon, with the June 30 introduction of the GST.
On the other hand, many of the mainly younger, tertiary educated people who have in the past voted Liberal, who voted Yes to the republic in the referendum, have made a very major first-time change in their voting behaviour. Quite a few of them are likely to move over in the future to voting Democrat, Green or Labor.
Seriously investigated, the results of the referendum on the republic reveal enormous emerging electoral problems for the conservative side in Australian politics. These demographic problems for the conservatives are obviously going to increase in the future.
