Readings
NEWS 2020 Youth Summit gives young minds a say in future- Courier Mail
12/04/2008
AUSTRALIA'S best and brightest young minds have spent the first day of the 2020 youth summit nutting out 40 solid ideas for the nation's future.
The 100 delegates, aged between 15 and 24, focused on 10 key areas, including the economy, education, climate change, health, and the future of Australian governance.
The priorities were housing affordability, teacher shortages, health care and the lack of dialogue between young people and government.
Delegates came up with a range of ideas including ways to develop heavy-duty renewable energy plants and implementing climate change subjects at school.
They also discussed investment schemes for property development and tax incentives to encourage teachers to move to regional areas, plus having Medicare cards sent to people when they turn 13 and automatic electoral enrolment for 17-year-olds.
Federal Youth Minister Kate Ellis said it was very positive to see so many concrete ideas developed on the first day.
"It will be interesting to see how we can explore these ideas further and see if they can be developed to a point that they can be presented at (the 2020) summit and, importantly, to the Government," she said.
The delegates now have to mould the 40 ideas into 10 that will be pitched at the Prime Minister's 2020 summit next weekend.
Summit co-chair and former Young Australian of the Year Hugh Evans said he was confident the Government would jump onboard with the ideas.
"The very fact the Government has brought 100 people this weekend and 1000 next weekend probably means that they have no choice but to listen," he said yesterday.
"They are not going to invest so much resource into getting these ideas unless they are going to process and work on them because the backlash will be too significant."
Acting Prime Minister Julia Gillard assured the youth summit this would be the case.
"Let me reassure you that Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and the 2020 summit chair, Prof Davis, will examine your ideas with the utmost seriousness," she said.
Twenty-two-year-old delegate Simon Sheik says he hopes the summit will lead to better dialogue between young people and government.
"These two days act as a spark for future conversations. For too long young people haven't been involved in public discourse so, hopefully, this will be the start of something new," he said.
The delegates were selected from more than 1200 applicants. Eighty per cent of the group are students. The rest include business leaders, volunteers and a young mum.
About 17 Queensland representatives were expected to attend this weekend's event including Alison Smith from Kuraby, Emma Belts from Sherwood, Joshua Lane from Townsville, Rhiannon Habermann from Ipswich, Jennifer O'Brien from Grange and Michael Richards from The Gap.
The youth summit will continue at Parliament House today; the main 2020 summit will begin on Saturday.
Meanwhile, Enough Rope host Andrew Denton has pulled out of the summit, citing increased work commitments.
Susanna Dunkerley
