The politics of change : where to for young people and politics

The more fundamental challenge is to open the doors to young people, recognising the place at the table of Australian democracy that is theirs by right. It has been said that rights turn beggars into claimants (Frankovits & Sidoti, 1995) and with a sense of one's rights comes dignity and confidence. All those who participated in our democratic conversation on that Spring day in 2008, the younger change-makers very much included, had this in common. They did not wait to be invited to speak or to take up their cause or to agitate for change. As far as they are concerned, it is the natural thing to do in a democracy. Yet, as our simple typology attempts to capture, this is by no means true for all citizens. Too many young Australians lack the confidence or the knowledge or have been denied the opportunity. Too many have their way blocked: sometimes by institutional barriers such as an inadequate or inappropriate education; for others by cultural barriers; for others again by deeply embedded structural inequity. The most critical lesson we take away from our work to date is that the single most important factor for a young person's civic and political participation is a sense of their own agency: the experience of having been involved in decision-making processes that generally respect their views and that deliver results in which those views are reflected even if not adopted. How hard can it be for us - as parents, educators, service providers, healers, government officials, union organisers, employers and political party administrators - to do just that?