Robbie used to be staunchly left-wing. He's part of the wave of young men swinging right (2025)

Robbie Devine says he considered himself a loyal Labor follower growing up. He describes the political people in his family as left-leaning and his friends as "socially progressive".

But in the past few years, Robbie's views about politics have taken a sharp pivot to the right.

"One thing that was really important was I am a bit of a nationalist," he told The Feed, saying he associates greater nationalism with the right.

"I'm very proud of the country we have. So seeing — what most people would probably call white Australia — but seeing our typical Australian identity being dumbed down, I think as the years go on, is not something I was very keen on."

Robbie, who is 23 and studying law, says his opinions aren't the most popular in his demographic.

According to

, gen Z is more progressive than previous generations at the same age.

Young women, however, favoured his Democrat opponent Kamala Harris, showing political polarisation between the genders. This gender divide is happening in other countries, too.

In the 2024 UK general election, almost twice as many young women voted for the Green Party of England and Wales compared to men. Young men were twice as likely to vote for Nigel Farage’s conservative 'Reform UK' party.

Similar trends were also found in Germany's election this February, and in Canada, recent polling by Abacus Data in late March suggested that more men than women under 30 backed the Conservatives (41 per cent to 23 per cent).

Better known as AUSPILL, he argues against migration in his videos, saying particular ethnic groups are not “assimilating to the broader culture of Australia” when they live in suburbs with a large immigrant population, and migration isn't living up to the economic benefits that were promised by previous governments.

"Young white Australians are being partly culturally dispossessed and partly dispossessed from what would otherwise be their national inheritance," he said to The Feed, echoing his online sentiments.

"There's degree inflation [requiring degrees for jobs that don't need them], there's monetary inflation, housing prices are inflated, and we're the generation who are paying for it all."

"You're so penalised for being right-wing in institutions, on social media, not only are you ostracised, perhaps, but also you risk being de-platformed," he said.

Jordan Knight, a right-leaning commentator online who also focuses on migration, believes there is an appetite for this shift in Australia.

"We don't have the new media, new institutions, new political parties or think tanks yet - but green shoots are forming."

Knight said the swing has not been captured yet by a political party, but he believes it will happen.

"The right - the new right - in Australia today will be a youth movement."

With millennials and gen Z overtaking the number of baby boomers voting for the first time in an election, many people are looking to see what impact this "youth vote" will bring.

Long-term trends show young people shifting left, according to Intifar Chowdhury, a lecturer in government at Flinders University, who conducted a post-election study from the 2022 election.

But young women are moving left at a faster pace than young men.

Chowdhury says historically, women used to be more right-leaning compared to men, and it came down to women having higher levels of religiosity.

"What happened in advanced democracies is that women started to participate at higher levels, in higher education, but also the paid workforce. And that's when they realised that, 'oh, hey, we are in a weaker economic position compared to men'," she said.

This, she said, led women to favour the redistribution of income and taxing others, skewing female voters to the left.

Now, crunch this gender perception with the general sentiments of young people feeling less well-off than older generations and you have "a double whammy", Chowdhury says.

"All you need on the supply side is someone to weaponise this discontent, take this grievance and shift the blame to someone else," she adds, saying leaders in other countries, like President Trump, have fought on ideological lines.

This, however, has not happened in Australia, where she says politics is still fought on issues.

Chowdhury says while Opposition leader Peter Dutton has tried to tap in and test the waters here by emulating the campaigns of other populist leaders, it hasn't quite taken off.

"I think Dutton kind of tried to launch a light version of Trump, but I think very quickly he realised probably Australia does not have an appetite for that yet," she said.

"We're not a very polarised society in Australia. We somehow converge in the middle. We don't like extreme, radical ideas."

Another difference in Australia, she says, is that compulsory voting has helped level out any big political shifts.

In the 2024 US election, 1 to 2.6 per cent of voters said they changed their minds about their vote after listening to a podcast, Raffaele Ciriello, a digital innovation researcher at the University of Sydney, told The Feed.

He said while polling and data still suggest a left-skew for young male voters in Australia, politicians in Australia are harnessing the same platforms, and while it might not play a big role in this election — it could ramp up in later years.

"Keep in mind that US trends usually spill over to Australia with some years' delay. So if not in this election, then we may see similar trends in upcoming elections."

Keep in mind that US trends usually spill over to Australia with some years' delay.

Raffaele Ciriello, a digital innovation researcher at the University of Sydney

"We don't have all the things that are necessary to take it in the other direction yet, but that doesn't mean that it can't go the other way," she said.

“That doesn't mean that we don't have a group of younger men who are being mobilised by anti-system podcasts or anti-woke sentiments, because they are there," she said.

The surge in popularity of the right in other countries, particularly the US, has left Hugo (AUSPILL) with mixed feelings.

"Not all the success overseas necessarily translates to positive things here," he said.

The popularity of US President Trump can mean people automatically assume young males who skew right, like himself, have an allegiance to MAGA politics or one party, he says.