On Sunday, August 15, the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance hosted an online deliberative town hall with Member of Parliament Alicia Payne and constituents from the electoral division of Canberra as part of their ongoing research project, Connecting to Parliament (C2P). The subject of the town hall consisted of issues that young people face in Australia: education, employment, costs of living, equity and inclusion, and climate change. In addition, four types of reforms were discussed in order that the concerns of young people might be heard better by policy-makers: funding for youth advocacy organisations, consulting young people directly, lowering the voting age, and encouraging young people to join existing formal political institutions.
Residents of Canberra were supplied invitations by mail, who then registered on our website to attend. Each resident was encouraged to view a short topical video featuring Professor Ariadne Vromen, an expert on youth issues and participation in Australia.
The town hall was hosted on Citizen Lab, a civic engagement software; participants posed questions to Alicia Payne via chat box and were then discussed among each other, their town hall experiences and thoughts about youth inclusion and representation in Australia. The C2P team is now in the process of conducting survey and interview research.
Stay tuned!
To learn more about this project, visit the project website: https://connect2parliament.com
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