Kate Ellis (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Youth and Sport) Share this | Hansard source

The consequences of that short-term mindset now have us a decade further down the track, hurtling towards challenges such as climate change, water management concerns, skills shortages and housing affordability crises, to name but a few. We are charged with the responsibility, therefore, of ensuring that we now build a modern Australia to tackle the challenges of the future. We recognise that in doing so we bear an important accountability to future generations for the decisions that we make today. Because we are a government that realises that the entire repository of wisdom and insight about how to respond to those challenges does not solely rest with us, the Prime Minister is calling together 1,000 of the nation’s best and brightest minds for the Australia 2020 Summit on 18 and 19 April.

We realise that the nature and magnitude of the challenges before us require the ingathering of the particular genius of the breadth and depth of the Australian community. This is fresh new thinking. A crucial component of the genius that will be required to find ways to tackle these challenges and shape the future effectively is to be found in young Australians.

We are a government—and I intend to be a minister—that not only talks about the fact that young people are our nation’s finest resource but actually taps into that resource and engages young people in the discussion about what they want their future to be like. That is why I was proud to announce earlier this week that I will be hosting a Youth Summit on the weekend immediately prior to Australia 2020. The Youth Summit will be a dedicated two-day summit held on 12 and 13 April in Canberra ahead of Australia 2020. The summit will bring together 100 young people, 15 to 24 years of age, in discussions on the same critical areas as Australia 2020.

It has often been the case that young people’s participation in decision making is limited to discussion about what are perceived to be youth issues. But what I and this government realise is that the issues that young Australians are faced with and concerned about are whole-of-community issues. Indeed, when we ask young people for their views and visions, invite their insights and seek their proposed solutions, we realise that this generation of young Australians has a unique grasp of the challenges ahead and a particular experience of life that enables them to come up with solutions that we might not have otherwise considered. When we involve them, we find that they very often possess the new thinking so urgently required. My hope and expectation is that the group of 100 young Australians gathering on 12 and 13 April in Canberra will offer precisely this.

A dedicated Youth Summit demonstrates the government’s commitment to young people being at the table when long-term challenges are discussed. Young Australians are already contributing to addressing these challenges now and will inherit full responsibility for them in the future. This event shows that the government understands the fundamental importance of involving young Australians because they will be the parents, business leaders and community leaders inheriting the consequences of decisions made today.

But it is important to emphasise that the Youth Summit is not about tokenism or conveying an impression of participation. The Youth Summit will feed in a very real way into Australia 2020. The Youth Summit program will reflect the Australia 2020 program. It will produce a brief, overarching communique to the Australia 2020 summit and an attachment to the communique presenting three key youth perspectives on each of the Australia 2020 challenges. Indeed, it is intended that the energy, ideas and visions generated at the Youth Summit will become a catalyst for the discussions which follow at Australia 2020. Ten of the summit participants, along with the Youth Summit co-chair, former Young Australian of the Year, Hugh Evans, will go on to participate in Australia 2020 the following weekend.

I am delighted that Hugh Evans has accepted the invitation to co-chair the Youth Summit with me. Working on something like Youth 2020 is a natural extension of the work Hugh Evans has been doing all of his life. He established the Oaktree Foundation, Australia’s first entirely youth run and youth driven aid and development agency, which is now providing more than 1,000 people with a chance of getting an education for the first time in their lives. He also established the Youth Ambassadors program with World Vision and he was the first ambassador in the program. He is a passionate advocate for young Australians. Hugh cares about making a difference and takes every opportunity to ensure that young Australians’ voices are heard. Just referring to the biography on Hugh Evans’s website makes it perfectly obvious why we have invited this young man to help lead the summit:

At just 23 years of age, Hugh Evans is dedicating his life to helping the most underprivileged people in this world.

Hugh’s passion for helping others began when he was 12 years old and became involved in World Vision’s 40-Hour Famine. He started organising the Famine at his school and personally set himself very high targets. Over the next few years, his school became the highest fundraising school for the 40-Hour Famine in Australia. At age 14, a sponsored trip to the Philippines to see World Vision’s work first hand impacted Hugh’s life immensely. Sleeping in a slum, Hugh witnessed an entire community built around a garbage dump and saw children scavenging and dying around him. It was a turning point in his life.

This experience led him to found The Oak Tree Foundation, Australia’s first entirely youth-run and youth-driven aid and development agency. With over 250 volunteers under the age of 25, it is a movement of young Australians who seek to empower developing communities through education in a way that is sustainable.

“I stand for providing people in the developing world with greater opportunities and I think that a critical part of that is education and how important education is in empowering developing communities.”

In its first year, Oak Tree raised over $100,000 to develop a community resource centre in the Valley of Embo in South Africa. This centre now provides more than 1,000 people with the opportunity to receive education for the first time in their lives. Sustainability is important to Oak Tree. This means the projects undertaken have to be owned by the community, run by the community and ultimately working to enhance the community.

Hugh believes young people can do anything given the opportunity. The Oak Tree Foundation “provides an avenue for many other young Australians to also make a difference in this world”. Young people are encouraged to use the gifts they already have and what they are already passionate about to serve the poor.

Hugh also established the Youth Ambassador Program with World Vision, which enables young people to go and see the work and participate themselves. Following its approval, Hugh travelled to South Africa as World Visions first Youth Ambassador.

A passionate humanitarian, volunteer and youth leader, Hugh remains humble. He believes people see him as “someone who can act as a representative of young Australians, of Australians that actually want to be out there in the world doing something really good. I am someone who really cares about making a difference in the developing world so if that is what I can be seen as, then that’s cool.”

Hugh’s sincerity, humility and genuineness are what have inspired so many people, young and old, to work towards helping those less fortunate. He is an inspiring individual.

Youth Summit participants will be selected through a public call for nominations. The selection process will ensure suitable demographic representation, including Indigenous representation. People with disability and people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds are encouraged to apply. The selection process is also designed to make sure that Youth 2020 includes young Australians from regional and metropolitan areas across all the states and territories. The website Australia2020.gov.au has been set up, containing information and a mechanism for online nominations. There is a dedicated Youth Summit section on the site. In the two days since the Youth Summit was first publicly announced, the department has already received over 200 requests from young people asking for nomination forms. A 2020 steering committee of five young Australians will make recommendations on delegates for the summit.

It is also important to note that the Youth Summit is occurring within the context of the government’s broader commitment to establish an Australian Youth Forum. I have previously conveyed to the House that one of my priorities this year is to engage with young people and the youth sector, seeking their input on the formulation of a framework for the AYF. The Youth Summit will provide a key opportunity for me to peak directly with 100 young Australians as part of that consultation process. Indeed, the AYF will be formally on the agenda for discussion during the Youth Summit program.

I am proud to be a member of a government that recognises that young people’s perspectives, views and visions are valuable and worth listening to and acting on. I am proud to be part of a government that knows that young people are not just our future but also an important part of the present. I am proud to be Minister for Youth in a government that recognises that our present-day decisions and actions will impact on the future lives of today’s youth. And I am proud to be a member of a government that not only commits to give young Australians a voice but intends to work in partnership with them in shaping the future.

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