For the first time, Gen Z and Millenials make up the majority of the electorate in this year’s federal election.

Australia’s major political parties are scrambling to appeal to this new majority, with many young people saying their major issues include cost-of-living pressures, the housing market, and climate action.

This election campaign cycle has seen major political parties trying some unorthodox new strategies, the latest being a ‘diss track’ from the Liberal Party. The rap song, released officially on Soundcloud on April 14, includes artwork of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese photoshopped onto a shrugging emoji. The lyrics take shots at both him and the Labor government.

Chief executive of YouthJam Media Isaac Mulcrone believes it’s no surprise the major parties are struggling to appeal to young voters.

“The Coalition and Labor don’t know how to market to young people because they’ve never had to. They’ve never had to talk to young people and they’ve never had to engage with young people,” he says.

Mr Mulcrone says he isn’t convinced the Liberal Party’s diss track will win them any votes.

“As much as it’s catchy and it does get in your head a bit, it is absolutely cringe. I did speak to Michaelia Cash, a WA Liberal senator, and she said the cringey-ness actually helps sell the track and it means that more young people are going to listen to it. I think that’s absolutely insane,” he says.

Anthony Albanese has similarly made recent headlines in his own attempt to appeal to the ‘youth’, labelling the Coalition “delulu with no solulu”.

The general consensus around much of the campaigning this election revolves around one word: cringe.

Curtin Student Guild president Dylan Storer says despite these attempts to tailor their campaigns to young people, the policies are not clear enough.

“I think now that Gen Z and Millenials make up the majority of the electorate they’re sort of trying to fit their messaging towards that but I don’t think we’ve seen a lot of the policies to back that up.”

Mr Mulcrone says the campaigning on both sides is doing a disservice to people who just want a solution to the problems they’re facing.

“It doesn’t seem like either party are taking that into account.”

Despite the policies not being made clear to many young voters, Mr Storer says politicians will have no choice but to listen to the new generation.

“Our politicians need to start putting the goals, the dreams, the aspirations of young people at the core of their platform. I don’t think parties are going to have much of a choice in that, going forward, with young people making up more and more of the electorate.”

The Tasmanian Labor branch’s rap song response to the diss, posted last week, has since been deleted.