Old enough to vote, old enough to lead: the young’s fight to sit at the political table

“Though some of you cannot yet vote, I hope that, when you do, it will be in a more goated Australia for a government with more aura. Skibidi!”

Senator Fatima Payman’s viral speech in the Senate last month, using the language of Gen Z, highlighted a problem in Australia – that young people feel excluded from politics.

For the four million Australians aged 18-30, there is not a single Federal member for parliament who represents them in their local electorate, with the youngest MP in the House of Representatives 31-year-old Stephen Bates. The Senate is not much better with only Payman, 27, and Green’s senator Jordan Steele-John, 30, both from Western Australia.

Central News spoke to a group of young political candidates from the recent NSW council elections about the barriers faced by young, aspiring politicians, and the path ahead for them.

Not taken seriously

Until the 2016 federal election, there had been MPs under the age of 30 elected at every federal election since 1955. The trend since then federally is also starting to be mirrored locally, with only 10 councillors aged 18-24 elected statewide in the last council term in NSW.

Young, aspiring politicians spoken to by Central News said a growing stigma associated with young people in politics has contributed to this decline of youth representation.

Cllr Libby Austin, who made headlines when she was elected unopposed at 19 in Penrith City Council’s East Ward, said there had been an immediate backlash from the media.

“There was a lot of media in the first few days [after I was elected], and pretty much, the first three or four articles to come out were all negative,” she said.

“[They didn’t] even need to mention how old I am.”

The Daily Telegraph described Austin’s election as an “alien invasion” into local councils, while local Penrith newspaper The Western Weekender reported the uncontested election “opens [the] door to council dysfunction”.

Austin said that many of her friends even voiced their hesitancy over her campaign.

“I had a few people being like, ‘Oh, why didn’t you wait till you were more experienced?’” she added.

In the Northern Beaches, Cllr Ethan Hrnjak, a 21-year-old environment and planning law student, said he had also weathered a barrage of criticism.

The Macquarie University student was elected to a seat on the Northern Beaches Council last month and has run for a seat on the Northern Beaches Council before, as well as in the 2022 federal and 2023 state elections.

Young people get the opportunity to engage with the process, but they’re never actually in a position to win because they’re at the bottom of a ticket.

“It’s certainly not easy. I have had my signs graffitied in the past,” he said. “I’ve seen ones that say he looks 12 [and] a lot of them are just removed or defaced.

“One of the other councillors who got elected refers to me as a ‘good boy’.”

Austin and Hrnjak are a few of the young candidates who triumphed in the polls. Many others missed out, and also had to to wear sly comments in their respective campaigns.

Diaan Nasser, 19, who ran as an Independent in Wollondilly Shire, said she felt as though her campaign was viewed solely as a “youth campaign”.

“I heard a lot about securing the young vote during my campaign,” she said. “I found that condescending to assume that because I’m young, all young people are going to vote for me.”

Harrison Chudleigh, 19, an Independent in Hornsby, said his experience running for local council was challenging.

“[Young people] get the opportunity to engage with the process, but they’re never actually in a position to win because they’re at the bottom of a ticket,” he said.

In many instances, this was the case for young candidates, with most parties placing them on the ballot for council campaigns but well down the pecking order.

While Nasser and Chudleigh said they would consider running for local government again, for many other young people, these experiences can be a deterrent.

Greens MP, Max Chandler-Mather, 32, experienced similar backlash as a young person in federal parliament. The abuse stretched so far that two MPs reported the attacks to the Speaker of the House, according to The Sydney Morning Herald.

Senator Payman also complained of ‘intimidation’ from her former Labor Party colleagues, including the prime minister, after her decision to vote against the Party caucus on Palestine. She subsequently left Labor to sit as an Independent.

Young voices, young ideas

Chandler-Mather, despite facing parliamentary abuse about his experience, has brought fresh and necessary ideas to policy debates. In the area of housing, he has advocated for rent freezes, the abolition of negative gearing (previously a Labor policy) and is one of the few parliamentarians who rents rather than owns where he lives.

In fact, young politicians often introduce new, at times contrarian ideas, that older party members baulk at.

Hrnjak, elected to the Northern Beaches Council with 22-year-old student Bonnie Harvey, said he wants to encourage more public investment to make the ‘Beaches more friendly and inviting for residents’.

“One thing we’re (Hrnjak and Harvey) passionate about in this term of council is encouraging third spaces – places where young people can hang out without having to spend money,” he said.

Meanwhile, Austin wants further focus on domestic violence. The ‘Outer West’ of Sydney, including Penrith, has a DV rate higher than the state and Greater Sydney average and Austin advocates for aid on a local level.

“We have state and federal government initiatives for new funding for family and domestic violence, but at a local level, there is not much at all,” she added.

“Everybody in our community knows someone [who has been impacted by DV] and local government can have a real impact in [assisting with that].”

All young councillors or council candidates contacted by Central News also eluded to having a lived experience of the problems which pertain to young people and therefore an understanding of the potential solutions.

“We can’t have people trying to fix these problems that haven’t experienced it themselves,” said Austin.

“If, for example, politicians have not been renters in 40 years, they have no idea what it’s like to be someone renting in the current housing climate.”

The way I’ve overcome barriers is to do the work and show people you are capable, and in some circumstances, more capable than an older person.

Current housing prices mean for an average salary of $90,000, no houses and very few flats in Sydney are affordable, according to CoreLogic house price data.

This lack of political understanding of youth issues also extends to transport, according to young councillors and young council candidates.

Nasser, who ran in Wollondilly Shire Council on the southern fringe of Sydney, travels nearly three hours via two trains and two buses from Thirlmere to Sydney University. She said train and bus services in Wollondilly are severely underfunded, meaning that for young people who cannot afford a car, they are “left out by a lack of public transport”, whether it be to get to work or education.

Other issues such as climate change, have repeatedly been the subject of protests by young people. School Strike for Climate has been protesting for greater government action on climate since 2018 and in 2020, 16-year-old Anjali Sharma took the Australian Government to court over their duty to protect young people from climate change.

Where next?

While these young councillors, among others, are ensuring young people are heard in local government, it is far from a guarantee that state or federal politics will follow suit.

Preselection for the upcoming Federal election has already begun, but few young candidates have been chosen.

Labor has preselected recent university graduates Emily Mawson and Rhyiannyn Douglas for the seats of Capricornia and Longman, but they are exceptions among the mostly middle-aged ALP preselections. The Liberals, meanwhile, have selected 31-year-old finance lecturer Amelia Harmer and early 30s farmer Tom Venning to run in the seats of Kooyong and Gray, as their only young candidates.

For young people to finally find a place at the political table, Hrnjak said they needed to prove their worth.

“The way I’ve overcome [barriers to young people in politics] is to do the work and show people you are capable,” he added, “and in some circumstances, more capable than an older person.”

Main image of State Parliament in Macquarie Street by Sam Lawrence.