UniSA Media Release
A radical shift is needed in how Australian parliaments engage with young people, ensuring that the next generation is not sidelined by the country’s political institutions, but encouraged to shape the future.
That’s the message from Australian human rights advocate, UniSA senior law lecturer, Associate Professor Sarah Moulds, in a new paper published in the Australian Journal of Political Science.
Assoc Prof Moulds, who is editor of the Australasian Parliamentary Review and co-founder of the Rights Resource Network SA, argues that young people must be recognised as citizens now – not citizens in waiting – if Australia is to build a more resilient, equitable and future-focused democracy.
“Outdated assumptions about younger people are preventing Australia’s democratic institutions from keeping pace with social change,” says Associate Prof Moulds.
“At a time marked by a global decline in democracy, intergenerational inequality, and declining trust in political institutions, Australia’s parliaments cannot afford to sideline the voices and views of younger generations.”
Associate Prof Moulds’ article highlights a long-standing pattern in Australia, where young people are framed either as vulnerable “figures of hope” who need protection and instruction, or as “figures of risk” who must be shielded from harmful content, including political discussions.
She argues that both narratives limit young people who want to get involved in democracy.
“Young Australians are not apathetic or disengaged. They are expressing their democratic views in ways that are meaningful to them and not aligned to conventional party politics.
“This can include online activism, protests, and issue-driven campaigns. However, these forms of engagement are rarely acknowledged or valued within parliamentary settings.”
Conventionally framed programs such as Youth Parliaments and school-based civics education are critically important, she says, but often position young people as learners rather than political actors or policy makers s, limiting their overall impact
“While these initiatives can inspire interest in democracy, they do not typically give young people any real influence. This is a missed opportunity. If parliaments want to strengthen democratic engagement and rebuild trust, they need to move beyond tokenism and that means sharing power.”
The article draws on practical examples from New Zealand, Wales and Scotland – jurisdictions where parliaments have actively worked to give young people greater authority and visibility in politics.
In New Zealand, the Rito o te Pãremata youth reference group has helped transform parliamentary engagement by flipping the traditional teacher-learner model. Young people co-design engagement strategies, develop resources, and advise on parliamentary practice.
“Their contributions are valued as expert knowledge rather than supplementary input,” says Associate Prof Moulds.
Wales provides another example through its directly-elected Welsh Youth Parliament, where 16-and 17-year-olds vote for representatives who actively contribute to parliamentary processes and policy making.
Both Wales and Scotland have lowered the voting age to 16, further strengthening democratic participation, with research showing that early voting can help embed lifelong democratic habits.
Assoc Prof Moulds argues that these international examples illustrate what is possible when parliaments view young people as political agents who are invested in democracy. She notes that the South Australian Parliament is also punching well above its weight when it comes to innovative education programs.
“In Australia, momentum for reform is slowing building. The Federal Parliament’s 2024 Inquiry into Civics Education and Political Participation acknowledged the need for more diverse and meaningful youth input. However, systemic change requires more than modest tweaks.
“Creating the conditions for genuine intergenerational fairness means reshaping our parliamentary culture to value and listen to young people’s views.”
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I agree completely that young Australians deserve a real voice in shaping our democracy. What troubles me most is how badly this generation has been let down by the very politicians who should have protected their future.
When I left school at 15 in 1956, anyone who wanted a job could find one. Governments invested in training, stable public sector employment, and fair wages. Young people could build a life, buy a home, and feel secure. That foundation has been stripped away over the last 40 years. Today’s generation faces insecure work, unaffordable housing, student debt, and a political class that talks about them but rarely listens to them.
Young Australians are not disengaged, they are frustrated. And they have every right to be. They have inherited a system shaped by decades of neoliberal policy that shifted risk onto individuals while politicians protected corporate interests. No wonder trust has collapsed.
If we want a stronger democracy, it has to start with treating young people as citizens now, not “citizens in waiting.” They deserve real influence, real power, and a political system that actually values their voice and their future.
For a very long time, governments have determindly ignored the needs of the younger generation. I’m sure they’ll be kept in the dark, lied to, and used as cash cows, just like their parents and grandparents.
One hopes that young people will think and act better than some in our generation, for recent decades have seen declines in every vital area. The current opposition, having buggered government for ages, continues to perform like simpleton simians, led today by O’Brien and Joyce as repulsive acts. The “young” hopefully, might save our reputation for having a poor reputation.
We don’t have much choice. As far as the future is concerned, there are no alternatives other than the next generation.
I don’t think the voting age should be lowered.
If you are too immature to responsibly drink alcohol, drive a motor vehicle unsupervised, choose your sexual partner, choose to marry, get a passport or choose to get a tattoo, I’m not sure why you’re mature enough to help run the country.
And remember, experts and the government says – just the day before you weren’t mature enough to participate in political discourse on social media.
Roswell is correct, and any young person who’s paid a modicum of attention to the gestalt or zeitgeist within which they’re embedded is aware that by and large the prevailing powers that be, vis-à-vis the political movers and shakers, are more concerned abut preserving status quo rather than responsibly and appropriately adapting to the challenges confronting them.
They, the next generation, have every right to want to have a say in the future. As someone once crudely noted, it’s better to be on the inside of the tent pissing out than to be on the outside pissing in. Around a dozen or so countries have already lowered voting ages to 17 and in some cases 16, and their societies appear to have resisted collapse, as far as I can tell.
Younger generations are demographically outnumbered by middle aged and older high fertility generations with more voters in their ’80s, ’90s & 100s emerging; tend to be more monocultural and less educated.
Significant generational and cultural gap with younger generations being more educated, more diverse and electorally outnumbered, for now.
I’m 82 yrs old. I am living the remainder of my future independently. I have no right to influence or determine the future of the next generation. On reaching normal retirement age politicians should retire before the next scheduled election and make way for the next generation of inspired, educated and able citizens.
AC:
And remember, experts and the government says – just the day before you weren’t mature enough to participate in political discourse on social media.
That applies to any cut-off age/date. What a disingenuous argument.
Not really, if experts and the government advise that those aged 15 years and 364 days are too immature and easily influenced to use social media, and they are legally banned, but the next day they are mature enough to help run the country, I’m afraid I think that’s odd and lacks any rationality, it isn’t disingenuous
We were luckier than most in that at 16 we had a history teacher who would devote half of the lesson to politics. For the first 20 minutes we’d be learning Indonesian history before pivoting into a discussion on how hopeless a prime minister Billy McMahon was.
She was a stunningly attractive young teacher. The boys in the class were very attentive to her every word (it’s the mini skirt that did at). One of her qualities was her interest in the students – it went above and beyond the call of duty. The interest was so intense, that she was sleeping with a guy from the class above us. She certainly was devoted. Her lover played in my footy team – and she attended all our matches.
Now, where were we?
I’ve forgotten what we were talking about.
All this referencing to experts…you know what they say about ‘experts,’ right? An expert is a has-been, a drip under pressure. 🙂
Far better to go by one’s own knowledge and experience than simply accept the word of another. The usual caveats apply. Obviously, you’re not going to ask the local handyman for an update on your heart problem.
I think Dennis is right, but I love the comments of all the dinosaurs ; getting a picture of post ww2 decline.
F’rinstance, teachers with the fist mini skirts. these on the rise stratospherically during the last sixties.
A Commentator see it,too.
The whole nation has been cotton wooled, dumbed down, we seen with all the censorship over Palestine-the dumbness of “social cohesion” as against social consciousness.
When they need to lie, to withold basic facts from young people that they need to know about the real world, how indeed will they ever cope when finally forced to come to terms with a real issue?
If millenials are dumbed down, look to our politicians and other leaders.
“An expert is a has-been, a drip under pressure”
As a matter of interest, I have an honours degree in economics, but I didn’t make it an academic career.
I am however, entirely comfortable with discussing the subject.
I respect people that have devoted a career to a discipline, they have far more credibility than those that go with “the vibe”
I digress…
AC, this might amuse you: I have an arts degree, an honours degree and a diploma. I am a qualified historian and in my arts degree I majored in Aboriginal archaeology.
You’ll never guess, with those qualifications, what work they got me into in the public service.
No, you won’t guess. Never…
I ended up in Canberra working on social security legislation and litigation, and I built databases.
🤷🏻♂️
I know! But I don’t think you have ever just limited yourself to a public service data base!
Bright people are always bright, even when the occupation doesn’t fully challenge them
Cruel…my cognitive dissonance. But I still have to congratulate this site and its owners.
This huge fire, is it like a giant Grenfell Towers?
People never learn.
Indeed, citizens are the real resources – nothing gets done without us. Politicians have since time immemorial sought to extract from us, saying they could make better use of us than we, ourselves. Of course, that arrogance always turns into rot.
In a tribal sense, perhaps groups of 10 may be most efficient, but it doesn’t take a politician to determine our objectives. It can just be by dialogue and consensus.
Politicians, lawyers and money-lenders/banks invented blather along with the sky pilots. And then they became incorporated, and along with that came a new language, a sophistry, a new blather.
And so it has gone on, technologically enabled, beguiled by sophistry and blather, shifting by ‘legal’ writ, the individual wealth/resource into piles, so high now that they teeter and slump like all bullshit unless somehow propped up.
With these piles so high, the obsession, amidst teetering to collapse or slumping, has become the main game – shifting and/or propping.
Having lost sight of the original fundamental resource, the blathering politicians, lawyers, money-lenders/bankers, who don’t ascribe to manumission, know not what else to do. In desperation, they may ask us to breed more.
But who wants to breed whilst under a mountain of bullshit?
If the only ones left to breed are politicians, lawyers, money-lenders/bankers, extinction will be guaranteed, as all they can do is blather. Even the NewsCorpse of Murdoch won’t be around to record it.