Hansard debates

Dr RATNAM (Northern Metropolitan) (09:55:58) — I had the great privilege of visiting Moreland Primary School recently to speak to their grades 5 and 6 students engaged in a project-based learning task to create their own island country to learn about how societies function. They were also asked to create a system of government and were speaking to current politicians about how our system works. Not surprisingly, they asked about what it was like to be a politician, what motivates and inspires people and how people get to positions of leadership. They tossed up the pros and cons of a constitutional monarchy versus a republic and explored questions about how to create a system free from undue influence and corruption.

Just yesterday I also met a group of youth work students from Victoria University touring Parliament to learn about politics and social change, and a few days before that I met with students from RMIT who were exploring if politics was a career worth aspiring to. All these young people, like the majority of young people, have something big in common: they are passionate and care about the future of their communities and the planet. They want to take part in shaping issues like climate change and housing affordability that will impact young people for generations to come. They do not often like what they see in our current parliaments: pointscoring, bickering and short-sightedness. They want to see their representatives being visionary and compassionate.

Over the last two weeks we have seen state and federal budgets that have largely ignored the plight of young people. No wonder they often feel overlooked and turn away from politics despite wanting to be a part of changing the world. Our world would indeed be a better place if these young people had more opportunities to take part and indeed become our future politicians sooner rather than later.