Readings
NEWS Youth Lead The Way On National Issues
18/04/2008
A leading youth delegate attending this weekend's summit on Australia's future has called for participants to follow the example set by the nation's youth and "come with an open mind".
"The major summit has a bit to learn from the youth summit because we saw at the youth summit that the young people came up with great ideas and really did their best to leave an agenda behind," says Hugh Evans, who co-chaired the 2020 Youth Summit - held in Canberra on Apr. 12-13 - with Kate Ellis, Australia’s youth minister.
The youth summit, a lead-up event to the main Australia 2020 Summit, was attended by 100 young people from around Australia. Organisers say that the delegates, all aged from 15 - 24, were from a diverse range of backgrounds, with indigenous Australians, migrants and refugees joining with "second, third, fourth or more, generation Australians" to discuss the ten areas which will also be the focus of the main summit.
Among the topic areas considered were the future direction of Australia's economy; population, sustainability and climate change; and the nation's regional security. Despite the challenging nature of these subjects, participants have hailed the youth version a success.
"The 2020 Youth Summit has shown that young Australians have a bold vision for the future of our country and some new ideas about how we can make it a reality," said Ellis.
Naomi Gooden, a 23-year-old delegate from Western Australia - one of the 11 young Australians, in addition to Hugh Evans, selected by secret ballot to represent the youth voice at Australia 2020 - told IPS that the youth summit "was a very exciting opportunity for Australian young people."
"The ideas that were generated by the young people were really exciting and very progressive and the fact that the youth summit was given such a high profile and was considered so important by government is a very exciting step forward," she says.
The youth produced a communique which included a list of ten main ideas from the summit. Calls for a dialogue towards a treaty between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians, a national migrant and refugee strategy, and an incentives-based system for local governments to tackle climate change, were included.
"I actually think it's very positive that young people are having a say in Australia’s future," says Evans, a former Young Australian of the Year.
The youth communique is to be given to each of the 1000 participants at the main summit. The young participants were also buoyed by the participation of Ellis.
"She didn't just come to the summit for a speech and cup of coffee, she came for the whole summit," says Evans.
"She actually sat down with all the participants, got to know them, spent time with them, listened to them one-on-one. That was pretty incredible," the youth co-chair says.
Gooden was also impressed by the 30-year-old Ellis, who has taken on the recently re-created youth portfolio after the position was abolished in 2004 under the Howard government.
"It was fantastic to have the youth minister with us the entire weekend to ensure that there was a continual dialogue with the government," says Gooden.
She argues that the youth voice was silenced under the Howard government. "This has been a really great start for them (the Rudd government) in terms of actually wanting continual, reciprocal dialogue rather than one-way talking, which we've had in the past with the Howard government."
Prime Minister Rudd - who had travelled overnight from China - was in attendance to accept the ten ideas developed by the youth delegates.
"You're the youth of the nation, you're the nation's tomorrow and so the process has to begin with you," he told participants.
While Gooden acknowledges that the government is still in its infancy, she is hopeful that the space provided for young people to have a say in Australia's future will enable the youth voice to be heard this weekend.
"I get the impression that the government is very focused on ensuring that the youth voice is heard within that (Australia 2020) summit as well," she says.
And the signs are good. "From my discussions already with attendees at the summit, including some people in the rural topic area which I'll be attending, they're really excited about what myself and the other rural young people came up with at the youth summit and are really wanting to ensure that is heard," says Gooden.
Evans argues that with the number of people attending the main summit, it will be important for participants to be willing to consider the views of others.
"The key is for people to come with an open mind, not with a speech in their back pocket," says Evans.
"It's actually about people working together. Because when you think about it, in each area there are going to be 100 people. How are we going to achieve any real outcomes unless people come with an open mind and are willing to listen?" he asks.
While it remains to be seen whether participants in the main summit will work together as constructively as the young people at the youth event have done, Evans is confident that a youth summit could be held regularly.
"Given there were such fantastic outcomes from this past weekend, I think there is the opportunity now for the Australia 2020 Youth Summit to become a regular event," he told IPS.
But to make such an event viable, Evans argues that ideas generated by Australia’s young people would have to addressed by the government.
"I think to make it so that it's not what I'd call a 'token' youth event, you would need to structure it in such a way that the ideas are processed by government immediately," he says.
At the youth summit, Evans says that participants did not want to develop a communiqué "that gets filed away at the end of the summit. We want to actually have a process in place for how these ideas actually get considered."
Stephen de Tarczynski
