Voice Of Youth Starts With Two Nights At Roundtable
Sydney Morning Herald
Saturday March 13, 1999
The Government has met its new advisers, aged 15 to 24, and told them not to expect too much too soon, reports Stephanie Peatling.
IT WAS the place to be seen in Canberra this week. Apart from the Cabinet meeting and Question Time, the largest gathering of senior representatives of the Howard Government was a lunch with its new youth advisory panel. Ministers and Cabinet members - some of whom have been rumoured to ask where South Park is - flocked to be seen there.
Even John Howard dropped by to speak with the people charged with keeping the Government in touch with a group of voters who are usually hard to impress.
The first National Youth Roundtable is the Federal Government's new way of reaching young people. Not satisfied the Labor-appointed Australian Youth Policy and Action Coalition (AYPAC) was giving him the right sort of advice, the Minister for Education, Training and Youth Affairs, Dr David Kemp, cut its funding and replaced it with Roundtable.
It's supposed to work like this: 50 people aged between 15 and 24 come to Canberra twice a year to work in policy areas such as employment, education and health services and to tell the Government what young Australians think.
The first meeting, on three days this week, brought the players together and divided them into policy groups. They produced vision statements and will spend the next six months liaising with community groups, gathering information and formulating concrete suggestions to present to the Government at the second meeting in September.
Kemp says the Government is genuine in its commitment to young people. Roundtable is, he says, a "unique structure which enables the Government to link in with a whole generation of young people".
"You can see the Government took it seriously and we didn't just bring young people here to talk off the top of their heads," he says. "We brought them here to give them the opportunity to formulate views and we did that in the short term and the long term. If it was just PR you'd have them here for one day and someone would talk and that would be the end of it."
Michelle Beg, a 24-year-old community worker from Canberra, found herself in the group responsible for the economy and employment, two issues at the top of the Government's agenda.
"We know we won't be coming up with ideas that the Government hasn't heard before, but what we can do is promote broader principles," she says. "We can't be politically naive . . and there is only so much you can expect from a voluntary group of people who work and study. We are only 50 individuals ultimately."
Ryan Heath, an 18-year-old student at the University of Technology, Sydney, has already reduced his hours at his part-time job because of his commitment to the Roundtable. He will work as part of the national perspectives team examining national identity, reconciliation, constitutional reform and youth in governance.
Heath says although the experience has so far been worthwhile, it's up to the Government to prove Roundtable is not just for show.
"I can't speak on behalf of the Government, but they've told us they're prepared to listen," he adds. "Ultimately we'll judge them on their response at the end of six months. We've specifically been told to be frank and open. We're about to work our fingers to the bone and then it's up to the Government to make this work."
Kemp is coy about the specifics of how the Government will respond to the Roundtable's final suggestions, saying only that he will make sure each minister is aware of its work in his or her portfolio areas.
The delegates have been told not to expect too much too soon. "It's been made clear the wheels of Government move slowly and there are no guarantees, but all we can do is emphasise how passionate we are about this and hopefully they will listen," says Heath.
The Government has already discounted the Roundtable's expression of support for an official apology to the "stolen generation" of Aboriginal children. Reconciliation is one of the key issues of interest to youth, and as 17-year-old Cairns delegate Jamie Healy says, it may be the test of whether or not the Roundtable is a "gimmick".
On the other side, the Roundtable produced a well- received suggestion for a new constitutional preamble, expressing commitment to, among other things, the rule of law, preservation of the environment and equality of men and women and acknowledging the "custodianship of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people".
The Roundtable members know the Government is not about to reverse policy decisions on the basis of their advice. And since they are unlikely to change existing policy, the only other thing the Roundtable can really do is suggest policy ideas. But this is also problematic, given the general lack of policy experience of its members and their time restraints.
After all, this is a group of 50 individuals who have volunteered their time outside work and study to the Roundtable. Until this week they had never been in the same room together and they won't be again for another six months.
In contrast, the Labor- appointed AYPAC held annual policy forums, four national board meetings a year and a biennial conference for 500 young people. It had a Canberra secretariat of six who analysed policy, responded to Government inquiries and had input to legislation.
AYPAC's executive director, David Matthews, would like to see the Roundtable work in conjunction with other Government efforts to consult youth, a feeling shared by many of the Roundtable members.
But Kemp says the Government is satisfied the Roundtable alone will give the Government "access to a generation".
"The members of the Roundtable needn't feel they have to present the Government with detailed, worked-out, expert policies to have an impact," he says. "In some ways it's better and more influential to provide the Government with the key insight - point out where nothing's been done where something should be done and the Government can respond to that.
"You can have a lot of influence without writing the last sentence and putting in the full stop to the policy, and in some ways you can have a lot more influence by having a really good policy idea which you ask the Government to develop."
The Roundtable members are only too aware that it is far more difficult for the Government to act on their suggestions than it is for them to listen. What young people want and expect from their Government might be downright frightening.
But they are optimistic that they have proved their dedication and have issued Kemp and the other members of the Government with a challenge. In the words of Michelle Beg: "It's not over yet and so it's up to the Government to prove this is not a public relations exercise."
© 1999 Sydney Morning Herald