Karen Grogan (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In March this year, the Electoral Matters Joint Committee launched an inquiry into civics education, participation and engagement. It's been an excellent pathway to see such great organisations get involved, particularly the level of youth engagement. The passion and talent of young people have been on full display. We've have heard from some great organisations, including: the Australian Youth Affairs Coalition; UN Youth Australia; the Youth Affairs Council of South Australia; the South Australian Youth Forum; the South Australian Commissioner for Children and Young People, who brought along a student representative council; and the Civic Engagement Youth Advisory Group. I was delighted to see so many South Australian young people really driven to ensure that their voices were heard in this really critical inquiry.

The increase in mis- and disinformation is significant not just here in Australia but across the world. I was delighted to see the young people coming forward, seeing this and bringing forward their ideas on how we can counter these issues to ensure that our civics education, our engagement in electoral matters and our democratic processes are well respected and improved, and that we go as far as we can to actually improve the circumstances we find ourselves in. Civics education in schools and the community is critical in addressing these issues.

We heard through the inquiry that we have about 480,000 people who are not enrolled to vote, 600,000 who are enrolled but do not turn up and 800,000 who cast an informal route. That is a significant number of people whose voices are not being heard. In large part, it is due to a lack of information. I'm delighted to see that the hearings will continue, and the committee will report towards the end of this year on a critical, critical issue.