The Scoop Newsletter
March/April 2016
YACSA Update Hello and welcome to edition # 7 of The Scoop Federal election 2016 is on! (ish). The Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull has said the election will happen on July 2 but it won’t be official until he’s visited the
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Governor General and asked for both houses of parliament to be dissolved. That will happen after the budget is released on May 3 and once the leader of the
YACSA Update
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Election Preparation
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Y Vote Vox Pop
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National Youth Week Across SA
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Young Member Update
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Handy Hansard
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Opportunities
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opposition has made his budget reply speech in parliament – usually a couple of days after the budget drops. We’ll be watching the Treasurer present the budget live and will be tweeting all the gory details as it happens. The budget papers are huge and it’ll take a while for us to get our heads around the detail, but we will put together a quick summary for Facebook the following day. If previous years are anything to go by, there’ll be plenty to talk about! We’re putting together a list of budget measures to look out for, including funding for services and programs, like National Youth Week; in this edition we talk about the future of NYW and have included some responses to a survey we released recently. Also in this edition we share an interview with YACSA member Aimee about her views on democracy and the upcoming election. The interview was for Y Vote and you can check it out on their website, alongside vox pops from other young people around the country. So it’s all about the election at YACSA HQ (a happy time for politics nerds!) and we’ll be sharing lots of information in the lead-up. Keep an eye on Facebook, Twitter and our website and share, comment or ask a question online or via yacsa@yacsa.com.au. Cheers Anne
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Election Preparation Although the temperature might be dropping here in SA, things are hotting up in Canberra. In March, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull announced that both houses of parliament would be recalled from April 18 to reconsider the Australian Building and Construction Committee (ABCC) bill. Because it was the third reading of the ABCC bill (it had been rejected by the Senate twice before), this piece of legislation became a double dissolution trigger. Not even one day into the sitting period, the bill was once more rejected and the government now has the trigger to call an early election. Although PM Turnbull has not yet announced a definite date for the poll, it will likely be held on July 2. He has to call the election before May 12, and many expect he is waiting for his budget announcement on May 3. YACSA is working on the assumption that we may have to face an early election and so we are ramping up our election preparation. As part of this, we want to know what issues will be important to young South Australians in the coming poll. YACSA’s job is to represent the interests of young people across the state and the areas that we focus on during an election campaign are dictated by the opinions of young people. So please complete our short survey and tell us what issues will influence your vote in the 2016 federal election.
Don’t get left behind!
Changed your address since 2013, or not enrolled to vote? Electoral rolls close ONE WEEK after an election is called, so make sure your vote counts: www.aec.gov.au
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The Scoop March/April 2016
Y Vote Vox Pop Recently, one of our members sat down with The Scoop to answer some questions from Y Vote about the importance of young people making their vote count. Name: Aimee Age: 19 Occupation: I’m currently at school If you could choose ANYONE (fictional, dead or alive!) to be our PM, who would it be and why? It would probably be Penny Wong because she’s a politician that’s always stood out to me. She actually has solid morals and she’s effective with what she does. Australia invents a new $500 banknote. Which Aussie do you put on there and why? I would say someone indigenous because there are way too many white people on our money. What are the top 3 issues that will be influencing your vote at the next election? Why? Youth unemployment and homelessness, anything to do with equality and discrimination because those are all issues that have really personally affected me. For example I was knocked back from getting a job recently – they didn’t say it, but I’m pretty sure it was because I’m female and I was going for a trade work position, even though I did work experience there shovelling dirt for eight hours a day. I was on par with everyone else but they didn’t give me the job. How do you get informed about politics? Can you recommend any particular sources of info to others looking to get informed on these topics? I trust SBS more than any other news channel, mostly because when you see SBS news stories, you go, that’s relevant, it’s a good topic to have a discussion about, whereas you see the other news channels and it’s like, “Today, a dog got lost”. It’s cute, but is that news? Generally I get a lot of stuff through Facebook – if there’s something big happening, there’ll be a good couple of hundred statuses about it so that’s a really good way to find out about stuff. Plus, I get newsletters and emails and that kind of thing from Amnesty, YACSA, GetUp, all kinds of different groups. Whenever something happens, I’m always informed through them, because they’ll say, “Oi, the government just did this and it’s not good, sign this petition”. The Scoop March/April 2016
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An estimated 800,000 eligible 18-30 year olds didn’t vote at the last election. What do you think about this? It doesn’t really surprise me at all. I think voting is one of the small pieces to the big puzzle of being engaged in politics and democracy. I guess, looking at the big picture, you need to be voting, but it needs to go beyond that. It’s not just good enough to be voting, you need to be informed, you need to put pressure on candidates in your electorate otherwise your vote isn’t really worth that much. I know heaps of people – my brother, when it comes round to voting, he just goes “Aimee, you’re involved with politics, what do I do? Tell me who to vote for, I’ll do it”. He’s not thought about it at all, his vote is just basically two votes for me. Uninformed votes are just as bad as no vote at all, in my opinion, because it’s not democracy. It looks better on paper, but it’s still not democracy. And what do you think you can do to change that? Jacquie Lambie is awesome because she proves that there doesn’t need to be this whole stereotype of being a pompous suit who’s studied years of law, coming from a private school and a wealthy family. You don’t have to have all of those kinds of things to be a politician and to be a good politician. I don’t agree with all of her policies, but what she fights for, she does a damn good job of it and she definitely speaks for the people she’s representing. You can’t argue with any of that. I think more of that kind of pulling down or breaking down the barriers between the working class voters and people who say, “We tell you what’s best for you because we know best – we’ll do all the complicated stuff and we’ll just tell you little bits about what you need to know. Don’t worry about it, you just keep running about your daily lives.” No, everyone needs to be informed; everyone needs to know what’s going on. I think the language definitely needs to change in politics – it doesn’t need to be as complicated as it is. Nothing in politics needs to be as complicated as it is. Especially with technology – the government websites are awful to use. That is the best means for anyone to get information about what the government is doing and it’s the most outdated website there is. That’s not good enough! You should not be able to navigate a porn site better than a government website. Simple as that – that is a problem, that is why democracy doesn’t work right now, as far as I’m concerned. Say your best mate was thinking of not voting. How would you compel them to change their mind?* I would tell them that if you really don’t think there’s anything worth voting for, think about what’s worth voting against. I bet you there’s a candidate that has one particular or a few particular things in their platform that you definitely don’t want to see in office. If you can’t vote for something, vote strongly against something else.
*Excluding sausage sizzle bribery.
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The Scoop March/April 2016
Youth Week across SA This year, National Youth Week was held from April 8 – 17, with the theme of ‘My Community is Your Community’. YACSA got along to the state launch, held at Multicultural Youth SA (MYSA), to hear SA Young Members Fatima Tlaa and Tyler Lawrence kick off the week that celebrates young people’s culture and achievements. Unfortunately, this is one of the last years that this national celebration of young people will occur for the forseeable future: in the federal budget of 2015, the government discontinued funding for NYW. We’ve been getting lots of feedback about the cuts; below are some things that we’ve been hearing: Chance for the community to see youth in a positive light. A place for young people to celebrate.
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During this week young people find support, encouragement, confidence, friendship and new interests. Taking this away from them will take away the opportunity for resilience, confidence and well-being to improve.
It will not engage with young people and nothing good can be gained from stopping it.
NYW at the City of Mitcham Skatepark
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The cancellation of youth week will imply that our youth aren’t worth investing in and that our future isn’t worth investing in.
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Young Member Update A group of YACSA’s young members have started meeting monthly to more directly contribute to the work that we do. We’ll provide a brief rundown of what they discuss in their meetings and if it sounds like something you’d be interested in coming along to, get in touch with Kristy at kristy@yacsa.com.au. Amendments to the Summary Offences Act The South Australian government has proposed amendments to the Summary Offences Act to manage anti-social and disorderly behaviour in public areas and have asked for feedback via the YourSAy website. Young Members were provided with an overview and asked for their input. Our submission is now available on our website.
Federal election campaign YM reviewed the draft version of the ‘postcard survey’ asking young people to identify what issues will influence their vote in the upcoming federal election.
Y Vote At the March meeting we spoke about Y Vote and briefly explored potential actions the group could take to help increase youth voter participation and political engagement. Skye Riggs (Y Vote CEO & Founder) advised that there was an increase in numbers of people ‘pledging to vote’ after the last edition of The Scoop. The Scoop was an idea by our young members and thanks to their ongoing contribution and our YACSA Comms team – we are spreading the word about important issues affecting young people and inspiring action!
YACSA membership review YACSA is currently undergoing a membership review and requested feedback about YACSA membership for young people (12- 25 years). Young members shared their ‘YACSA story’ and how they became involved with the organisation. All cases involved direct contact with YACSA, whether that was through a staff member, training or an event. It’s more likely that young people will join/ actively engage with YACSA if they have direct involvement.
Connected to YOUth – 2016 Youth Strategy for South Australia Connected to YOUth – 2016 Youth Strategy for South Australia will remain on the agenda. Young members will aim to review the strategy in more detail during the next meeting, as well as decide on a response.
YMPG administration The group is still determining its scope and purpose, and will look into writing a mission statement for itself over the coming meetings.
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The Scoop March/April 2016
Handy Hansard Hansard is the official report of the debates and proceedings of the SA parliament. We like it because we can see who’s been saying what about youth affairs and young people. You can access it yourself and search for terms, but we look at it regularly so we will provide a snapshot for you in this section of the newsletter. In March, parliamentarians from both sides used the second reading of the Statutes Amendment (Gender Identity and Equity) Bill to talk about LGBTQI issues more generally. With the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia (IDAHOT) coming up on May 17, it’s always good to interrogate how we can avoid discrimination in our communities. Mr PICTON: There has also been a bit of discussion about the Safe Schools program ... My approach to that program is pretty simple: we need to do everything we can to prevent students being bullied at school, and this is a program designed to do exactly that. Mr PICTON: We know the statistics in terms of the suicide rates for young people from the LGBTIQ community, and the statistics are much worse in terms of mental health issues and suicide risk. To have this national debate going on as though there is something wrong with them as children in schools, which is the message that lots of people will be getting, I do not think helps in any way our efforts to combat that bullying in schools. I am very worried about the debate we have seen on that program in the last couple of weeks and I am hoping that some common sense will prevail and that we will actually get on to doing the good work of trying to prevent bullying in our schools, which is something that surely we can all agree on.
The Hon. S.E. Close: I would like to very briefly turn to what I believe some of the people in this chamber have been responding to, which I do not believe is actually in this bill, but it has conjured up a concern for them ... I had the same challenge when people raised concerns recently about the Safe Schools Coalition, where there is a sense in some of the correspondence I have received that if children know that it is possible to be gay, that will somehow in itself cause them to be gay; that if children know that being transgendered is something that can occur, that that knowledge in itself will change their own pathway.
The Hon. S.E. Close: I do not believe that that is true. I believe that information and knowledge respectfully given can only advance us as a tolerant society ... I have few claims to difference. I live in a world of enormous privilege, but occasionally I have that experience. For some people their experience of difference is far more profound, and the discrimination against them, the labelling of them, is far more serious than any I could experience as a vegetarian or a Port supporter, both of which I am extremely proud of.
The Hon. S.E. Close: Some people are in a category that people are challenged by, that they are fearful of in some ways, largely, I think, through ignorance. For those people, the language that we use and the discriminations that we have are deeply and profoundly hurtful. This piece of legislation is essentially a tidy up, but it is a step towards not continuing to denigrate, to differentiate unnecessarily, to give a lower value to the ‘other’—whoever that may be: the transgendered ‘person’ or ‘woman’; a person who is homosexual. I ask people to consider carefully ... passing this bill is a sign of tolerance, understanding, and maturity, so that we are able to see that people, at the end of the day, are people. The Scoop March/April 2016
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Opportunities Positions Vacant YMCA South Australia is seeking highly motivated, engaging and dynamic Outdoor Instructors and Activity Staff to join our Camping and Outdoor Education Team. The roles are pivotal to the YMCA achieving our mission and delivering high quality Outdoor Education and Activity programs across the state. For more information, contact Anthony Bates on (08) 8406 2900 and email applications to: Careers@sa.ymca.org.au
Y Vote are looking to engage a small and diverse number of volunteers to work with our leadership team to manage all aspects of Y Vote including research, creative, campaign management, communications and operations. Support Officers are required to commit to a minimum of four hours a week, including a regular fortnightly session with your mentor. If you’re energetic, have strong initiative, are a born problem solver and love working with a team then they’d love to hear from you! Find out more and sign up on their website.
Transition to Work A new Australian Government employment service focussed on getting young people aged 15-21 into Employment and Education through helping young people to understand what is expected in the workplace and to develop the skills, attitudes and behaviours expected by employers. Workskil Australia is proud to be delivering this service from Salisbury, Modbury and Enfield in Northern Adelaide. Contact: Victoria Amanatidis e: victoriaa@workskil.com.au t: 08 8487 0907
UCWB Support Worker Pre-employment Program The program is for people aged 18 years and over living within Bowden and the surrounding western suburbs, who are flexible, adaptable, resilient and good communicators. No prior experience working in the community sector is necessary, only an interest in providing care and support for older people and people with a disability, to assist them to live quality lives. WHEN: Tuesday 3 May, 10 am WHERE: Woodville West Torrens Football Club, Oval Avenue, Woodville South COST: Fully funded for participants that meet selection criteria To book your place or for more information contact Heather Franchini on 08 8245 7123 or heather. franchini@ucwb.org.au
Do you want to see your opportunity for young people
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The Scoop March/April 2016
here, or do you have an idea for content you’d like to see in The Scoop? Get in touch with us at scoop@yacsa.com.au.
Opportunities
Stepping Out SAMESH, in partnership with MOSAIC services are hosting a free workshop that provides a space for same sex attracted men, aged 18-26, to gather and talk about sexuality, sex and sexual health. Commencing April 26, the workshop will run once a week for six weeks. Spaces are limited, so be sure to register your interest. For more information contact: Matt Davies - 7099 5311 or matt. davies@samesh.org.au Emma Williams - 0421 103 319 or e.williams@rasa.org.au
The courses at Careers Australia have been designed in conjunction with industry, resulting in a suite of solutions ideal for improving skills, knowledge and processes within the workplace. They have a range of options for those looking to enter the workforce, up-skill or change career paths, from short courses, workshops, certificates or diplomas. Careers Australia has two campuses located in Adelaide, one in the CBD and another in Hindmarsh. The courses provided at these campuses include Certificate III in Aged Care, Certificate III in Early Childhood Education Care, Diploma of Nursing, Diploma of Business and Diploma of Youth Work. For more information about Careers Australia or the courses they offer, visit their website, download the flyer or contact Rosslyn Ward: e: rosslyn.ward@careersaustralia.edu.au m: 0450 722 579
Social Media Workshop Saturday 14 May, 9:00am – 4:00pm
Mission Australia Youth Survey
Social Media AOK is running a social media workshop to help young people be empowered to address social issues through social media. Free event with morning tea, lunch and afternoon tea provided.
Mission Australia is calling on Australia’s youth to express their concerns and hopes for the future by taking part in the largest annual nationwide poll of young Australians, the Mission Australia 2016 Youth Survey. The 2016 survey focuses on social inclusion/ exclusion from the perspective of young people aged 15 to 19 years, including participation in education, employment and community, family and social support, perceptions about general well-being, values and concerns and sources of support.
For more information contact Kuranda Seyit on 0412 318 045. Please register through Eventbrite.
National Youth Week SA Young Member 2017 The Office for Youth is seeking a young person aged 18 – 25 to represent South Australia at a state level for National Youth Week 2017. You will play an important role in the planning, promotion, implementation and evaluation of National Youth Week. To apply, you need to complete the online application form. Nominations close at 6.30pm on Friday 10 June 2016. If you have any questions please call Kylie Maglica at the Office for Youth on (08) 8415 4327 or email kylie.maglica@dcsi.sa.gov.au
Take the youth survey here.
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