Video Transcript
National Conversation - What's going on?
Burke: Kate, so you’ve got a whole lot of youth initiatives on this week.
Ellis: Yeah, absolutely Tony, as we know the Prime Minister has announced we’ll be working on a National Strategy for Young Australians. This week we’ve commenced a National Conversation so we’ve been out there visiting schools, having chats online and having all sorts of interactions so that we can get input from young people about the issues affecting their lives and about how they want the government to respond.
Burke: Okay so do you have to be in one of the major capital cities to be involved? How do the people out in the regions get involved?
Ellis: Well we absolutely know that there’s a whole lot of different issues affecting young people in regional, in remote Australia, and it’s really important that that forms part of this National Conversation as well. Which is why we’re asking all of the local MPs to get involved and talk to young people wherever they are, but also we want young people to get involved whether that’s online, and if they happen to stumble across www.youth.gov.au there’ll be some fantastic interactive ways that they can get involved. I know that you’ve spent a lot of time out in regional Australia, what are the issues that young people out there talk to you about?
Burke: Seriously one of the first things Kevin said to me when he gave me the portfolio was every time he visits a farm he finds people lamenting the difficulties in getting young people to stay in regional Australia and wanted to make sure that we had some live initiatives in that area. So some of that’s the sort of work that you’re doing but we’ve also got set grants now called Next Gen Farmers where we’re looking at direct payments there into some of the leadership programs, some of them around the field days and agricultural shows, there’s a whole lot of good work that goes on out there, but it’s a way of the government leveraging into it and becoming part of that too. And then of course, out in the regions, it’s not just farming and there’s a whole lot of issues that affect young people just because they’re living in some of the more remote parts of Australia and that’s why we’ve been involved in funding some of the Heywire campaigns through ABC as well.
Ellis: Well as part of the National Strategy the PMs outlined seven different areas which he wants us to address and they range from making sure that people have access to great educational opportunities, to employment opportunities, to the fact that they’re supported both within their family but also their community, and we’re also doing some really important work around safety and security and the fact that youth violence is an issue which young people are saying is of huge concern, but the rest of the community is not too happy about either. So there’s a lot of work to be done and I’m hoping that we hear from lots of people right across Australia, including regional areas.
Burke: Okay and hopefully the dialogue that you’re kicking off here is a big part of moving that forward.
Ellis: Absolutely, absolutely. So we want to hear from them.
Burke: Okay, good to be part of it.
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