By Callen Sorensen–Karklis
Its election time again, time to choose which people we want to represent us in the Parliament.
A time to pick something new or kick out the old, but do we really choose something new when things seem to change?
A key issue has been the youth turnout during recent years at elections. Almost 400,000 young people nationwide aged between 18 to 25 are missing from the electoral roll according to the AEC. That includes half our 18 year-olds and a quarter of our 19 year-olds.
Many paint the negative picture being today’s youth being ill-informed, inexperienced, and ignorant in today’s world.
As a young person who is both community and politically involved I’m here to tell everybody that the punters saying this are dead set wrong.
Young people today are taken for granted. How can we expect people in this demographic to roll out for uninspiring leadership in candidates that push for the fair go that made this country so great once?
Yes, a great deal of us young people care about climate change action, same-sex marriage, Indigenous rights, refugees, but we do also care greatly about our education, the nation’s health system, jobs, the economy and most importantly the democracy of this nation.
How can we expect younger voters to vote for something they think is broken or barely functioning? If the major parties stopped turfing out their leaders through revolving doors, chose articulate candidates set aside from the average career politician, introduced some sense of stability and increased everybody having more of a say in their party structures on policy and candidate selection, or heaven forbid, choosing an independent candidate for a change with some guts we might start to see an increase in younger voters.
I call on all Bowman candidates (my electorate) at this year’s 2016 federal election to listen carefully the youth of today who feel marginalized by endless media cycles of cynicism, political corruption, lacklustre, unimaginative budgets, and their blinker styled institutionalised leadership looking backwards instead of forward to tomorrow.
AEC says enrol by 23 May
The Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) says you are eligible to enrol if you:
- are an Australian citizen, or eligible British subject,
- aged 18 years and over, and
- have lived at your address for at least one month.
If you are 16 or 17 you can enrol now so when you turn 18 you’ll be able to vote.
This article was originally published on Redlands 2030.
