The Wellspring

With applications for the National Youth Roundtable 2007 set to open in less than a week, I thought it would be worth looking back at the Roundtable’s development and how it has changed with the Government’s attitudes towards consulting with young people.

The Roundtable was established by the Federal Government (through its Minister for Education, Training and Youth Affairs Dr David Kemp) in 1999 to “create a direct dialogue with young Australians to ensure their views are taken into account in the policy-making process”, and remains the “centrepiece of the Government’s youth consultation mechanisms” (though what other mechanisms exist I’m not sure). It was a replacement of sorts for the Australian Youth Policy and Action Committee, which had been funded from 1991 – 1998 as Australia’s national youth affairs peak. As a replacement for AYPAC, the Roundtable received much criticism from youth organisations, young people, and Labor and the Democrats for being a much smaller, narrower and more controlled consultative process. (The Australian Youth Affairs Coalition was founded in 2002 as a new youth affairs peak, but has been unsuccessful in their attempts for government funding.) Ironically, in its first year, the National Youth Roundtable ended up costing nearly $50,000 more than a fully funded and operational youth affairs peak.

The National Youth Roundtable originally consisted of 50 young Australians, chosen by the Government’s Youth Bureau and sorted into working groups that reflected issues of interest to young people. Concerns around the tightly government-controlled selection of members and consultative process persisted. In 1999 all but one of the facilitators quit the Roundtable in protest of the ineffective process. In 2000, Roundtable participants were reportedly prohibited from discussing the GST, and in 2001 the Government was forced to reinstate an Environment topic group after a petition from young people, youth organisations, and environmental groups. There were frequent complaints that participants did not have the opportunity to meet with non-government Members and Senators, and that the publication of participants’ reports was significantly delayed or that they were not released publicly at all, though this was disputed by Minister Kemp. The Shadow Minister for Youth Affairs, Kate Lundy, remarked: “After participating in the Youth Roundtable, members are at the mercy of the Minister who decides when, where, how and what policy initiatives he will look at.”

In late 2001 Australia received its first – and only – federal Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Larry Anthony. Though Roundtable reports started being made available to the public online from 2002, concerns about the consultations (and whether they were being listened to) remained.

The 2004 Roundtable received significant attention from the ABC and Triple J when a participant leaked a conversation in which a Ministerial Advisor instructed the participants not to say anything negative about the government, reminded them that they were only there because the government allowed them to be there, and warned that they should think about their future prospects of working with government before saying anything that might reflect badly upon the process. Participants also lamented the apparent shift in focus away from consultation, from a process that began as a direct line to government, to one that became merely about young people conducting community projects. This was especially ironic, given that earlier that year the Minister had adopted a policy document, Contributing and Changing, that committed the Government to “developing relationships that enable governments and young people to share in agenda-setting, discussion of policy and the development and evaluation of policy, programs and service options”, and ensuring that youth engagement would be a “positive, meaningful experience”.

Minister Anthony lost his seat in the 2004 election, and the Youth Affairs portfolio was downgraded and given to Sussan Ley, who became the Parliamentary Secretary for Youth Affairs until the portfolio was abolished altogether in the cabinet reshuffle of January 2006 (John Cobb, the Minister for Community Services, now handles youth affairs).

The National Youth Roundtable 2005 saw a dramatic cut in the number of participants, from 50 to less than 30 (26 members not including three who dropped out over the course of the year and three who were returning members). Notably, there was no representation whatsoever from Tasmania. Additionally, timing issues forced the process out until June 2006, which resulted in the absence of any separate 2006 Roundtable process.

At this stage, it is unclear how many participants will be chosen for the National Youth Roundtable 2007. Regardless, concerns over the comprehensiveness and independence of the Roundtable will remain. In particular, it is clear that, with a new cohort selected each year, there is little capacity for participants to follow-up on their recommendations, and hence little accountability for any government (in)action.

For more information, see the official National Youth Roundtable website at http://www.thesource.gov.au/involve/NYR/, and the Contributing and Changing website at http://www.mceetya.edu.au/mceetya/default.asp?id=11932.