LABOR frontbencher Kim Carr believes the key to winning the pending federal election could be encouraging the 500,000 disengaged eligible Australians to enrol.
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And one political expert says doing this could be enough to swing the result in a couple of electorates.
Senator Carr believes many of those not enrolled to vote may choose his party over the Coalition if they could be coaxed to the ballot box.
''I hope they would vote Labor,'' Senator Carr said.
He admits his book, A Letter to Generation Next: Why Labor, is no work of scholarly achievement - it was written much too quickly for that.
On the contrary it was written to be read, hopefully by potential young voters, and starts with a torpedo aimed at former Labor leader Mark Latham.
''Latham has certainly found a niche for his brand of dyspeptic commentary in the anti-Labor press - not bad for a former leader, even an embittered one. Or perhaps he says it best himself: 'If politics is show business for ugly people, then political commentary in Australia is payback from ugly old men'.''
The book's purpose is to argue against the idea, put forward by Latham at one time and others, that young people should not go into politics.
The Minister for Higher Education hoped the book would prod some of the half a million non-registered voters in the younger age brackets into signing up to vote.
He wrote the book in April, a time he describes as Labor's nadir, and fired off chapters to a publisher not knowing how quickly his party's fortunes would change.
Political analyst John Warhurst of the Australian National University said it was likely most of the 500,000 voters would vote Labor or Green, if they voted at all.
If these disengaged young people voted, it could change the result in a couple of electorates, he said, but it would not shift the result remarkably.
''These people are spread through 150 electorates,'' he said.
Senator Carr did not want to discuss what it felt to be sacked by former prime minister Julia Gillard last year and resigning from the frontbench earlier this year.
''They were both pretty gruelling,'' he said.
''You've got to learn to pick yourself up and deal with setbacks but I don't want to look back, I want to look forward.''
* This Wednesday at 6.30pm Mr Carr will talk about his book at a Canberra Times/Australian National University Meet the Author event at Theatre 3, Manning Clark Centre, Union Court.