Alison Byrnes (Cunningham, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This week we are participating in the Youth Voice in Parliament campaign, championed by Ash, Gemma and the team at Raise Our Voice. Today's speech is from Yasmin Matar, a 14-year-old constituent from Cunningham, and these are Yasmin's words.

The proportion of Australian university students from lower-socioeconomic backgrounds has barely increased in over a decade. In 2008 it was recorded that 15 per cent of undergraduates were from lower-socioeconomic backgrounds, whereas in 2019 this statistic only increased by two per cent. Since 2010, the Australian government has invested nearly $1.5 billion in higher education equity programs, yet participation and retention rates for the lower-SES remain far below other students. So why hasn't this $1.5 billion changed anything? Let's look at this from the beginning.

These students aren't getting into uni because they need to complete high school. A study conducted by the NSW Department of Education showed that by age 19 only 61 per cent of lower-socioeconomic groups have completed year 12, compared to the 89 per cent of high-socioeconomic students.

How can we fix this? By incentivising the completion of high school and providing free university education, we can not only increase the percentage of low-SES students attending and graduating university but help lower-SES children exit the cycle of poverty. This will mean, instead of staying on welfare and depending on the government for support, they will have prospects to get jobs and be self-supportive.

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Kylea Tink (North Sydney, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm delighted to amplify the following statement from a 20-year-old university student in North Sydney, who wrote this speech as part of the Raise Our Voice initiative, an initiative designed to amplify the voices of young women and gender diverse people in politics, domestic and foreign policy. She writes:

I believe parliament should prioritise mental health prevention through mandated compulsory education for primary and high-school students. This education should be stigma free, age appropriate and inclusive.

In year 5, I experienced my first period of severe mental ill-health when depression made eating, sleeping and socialising with my peers a daily challenge. But I am not alone in my experience. The 2014 Young Minds Matter national household survey estimated that 14 per cent of four- to 17-year-olds experienced a mental illness in that past 12 months. It is also well-known that suicide is the leading cause of death for young people in our nation—the leading cause of death for young Australians.

Mental health is vital to health and wellbeing, and every child that grows up in our nation deserves the right to reach a healthy adulthood. Through improving mental health literacy, we could improve help-seeking rates and reduce the shame around talking about mental health. Mental health education provides hope for the upcoming generations—hope that we may help people feel less alone, help that we may reduce the nine Australians that take their lives every day in our country.

I thank this young woman for her powerful statement and I add my voice to hers: young Australians need our protection and support more than ever.