Australian Senate
ADJOURNMENT Debate
10 March 1999

Youth Roundtable

Senator LUNDY (Australian Capital Territory)(7.46 p.m.)—I rise this evening to make comment on the event that has been taking place here in Parliament House and around Canberra over the last few days—the Youth Round Table. It has been an interesting process and one that the opposition has provided much comment on since the idea was first mooted by the government. Our consistent position has been that any initiative that engages dialogue with young people in this country within the political parameters of this parliament is a positive thing. But we have also consistently maintained that in fact this round table should be supplementary to the adequate and well-established consultative processes that have existed previously.

This issue is well on the record of the government's decisions over time to cut the support and the funding that makes the consultative peak of particularly AYPAC able to express a voice and put forward a view on behalf of the youth of Australia. The Labor position has consistently been that we actually need to build up these layers of consultation with youth in this country rather than diminish the layers and undermine their voice.

After observing the deliberations of the Youth Round Table over the last few days, I have a number of comments that I would like to make. Before I do so, I would like to acknowledge the contribution of all the young people that participated in the round table and congratulate them on their deliberations and their outcomes and wish them luck in their future endeavours with respect to their roles and responsibilities related to the Youth Round Table.

My comments go to the actual structure of the Youth Round Table and how it has been managed on behalf of the government over the last few days. No doubt there has been a flurry of activity. One of my concerns about that process is the status of this group in the eyes of the government.

The round table participants have been led to believe that they will be providing a critical voice and will be key influencers over government policy direction in the near future. This has been reinforced by several statements by the Minister for Education, Training and Youth Affairs, Dr Kemp, and has been taken at genuine face value by the participants in the forum.

Words come so cheaply in politics; it will be actions that determine whether or not the government has any credibility in this regard. It is in fact too early to judge whether or not the government will follow through with this profound commitment that they have given this group of 50 young Australians.

I would like also to raise the status of the Youth Round Table with respect to the role that was previously filled by the peak youth consultative group, AYPAC. That group provided a role of bringing together information from youth organisations right around the country, consolidating it and expressing it in an articulate and concise way to governments, to oppositions and to minor parties participating in the parliament at any point in time. It seems to me that, with the marginalisation and the cutting of funds to the AYPAC youth consultative peak, the government is hopeful that the Youth Round Table will fill this great gap in the voice of youths in this country.

The question that needs to be asked—I certainly made this representation to the participants of the Youth Round Table—is whether the government looking for a focus group with this gathering of young people or whether it is looking to create a new youth peak consultative body. It seems to me that the structure of the Youth Round Table primarily is geared towards providing the government with a very succinct insight into the views of these young people. This is incredibly important, but it also clearly defines the exercise as one of being a focus group, an opportunity for a political party or indeed, in this case, a parliament—I will come back to that point—to try to look inside the minds, the thoughts, the feelings and the values of this group of young people and allow them to express themselves and then to use that information to shape policy directions. This in fact is what the government has asked of this group of dynamic young people. I believe that they have actually delivered in providing that inspiration, those thoughts, the directions to the government.

If this government is wanting more from these young people than to tap into their values and use that information for their own future development in policy, strategy and government initiative, then what are they expected to do? How will this group of people be resourced to the point that they can actually meet what is a very demanding and great responsibility, performing the role of what was previously provided by the youth peak consultative body in this country?

I watched with interest over the course of the last few days as these expectations certainly became clearer to me as to what the ongoing task was for the members of the Youth Round Table. Indeed, it is quite comprehensive. It is so comprehensive that I am gravely concerned that the government has not provided adequate resource support or information to actually allow this consultative process to occur.

I am also gravely concerned that the demands on these people as a result of this expectation will start to impinge on their lives. It would be awful if it started impacting on their lives in a negative way. It

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is a plea for clarification by the government as to whether or not the round table is a worthy focus group or if it is a consultative peak body of young Australians.

How on earth can you replace an organisation such as AYPAC that has established networks, communications, a skills base and a volunteer base with a group of well-intentioned young people and expect them to be able to fulfil what will be no doubt a very high public expectation of their role? My own view is that I am sure they can do it with the appropriate levels of support, but I think the Australian community will understand the importance of distinguishing those points and seeking clarification from the government as to exactly what the expectation and role of this group is.

I would like to make a couple of other points about it. I am concerned that during the week there have been a number of structural changes to the actual meeting of the round table including the cutting of focus groups and the fact—and I think this is what concerns me most as a member of this parliament—that there was no record kept of what these young people have said over the last three days. Maybe it is because I am used to being in parliament and we have a fantastic departmental parliamentary reporting service that does record the words that are spoken in this place and provides them in perpetuity so we as politicians can forever use them as a fundamental resource. This did not occur with the round table.

In fact, I have found great difficulty even accessing the outcomes of this forum, given that I was unfortunately, depending on your perspective, in the chamber dealing with Senate business this afternoon when this group was reporting back to members of parliament in the Main Committee room. I am obviously concerned about this because I missed the event and there is no written or recorded record of the deliberations of these young people. As a member of this parliament and as a member of the opposition, I want to know if I am going to get access to this information. It is very important that my political party and I, as a member of parliament concerned about youth issues, do get the opportunity to also hear what these young people have said.

My final point is one of political manipulation. I believe the Youth Round Table is a resource to the Australian parliament. If it is just a resource for the coalition, for the government, then these young people are being manipulated. If it is in fact a resource to parliament and something that we can all participate in and get involved in, then we expect to see the information supplied to us and we expect to be invited to participate in the week's events at the next round table to a far greater degree than we were during this week.