Helena Abdou and Elsie Lange
A team of young people from Hume had the opportunity to attend the annual YMCA Youth Parliament Program, giving them an opportunity to speak up about the issues they care about.
Participants, aged between 16 and 25, spent time in committees developing bills, and then attended a week-long camp during which the legislation and other motions were debated in the state parliament.
The group of four comprised of locals from Sunbury and Craigieburn and first got together in February to brainstorm their idea, settling on gambling.
Sunbury youth parliamentarian and counselling student Lachlan Ziervogel said the group decided on the topic because it was both “poignant” and timely.
In recent months, gambling loss in the municipality has smashed records.
“When we had the option to design the bill and we were talking about how we could change stuff in Victoria and we settled on gambling, it felt like a great issue to chat about,” Mr Ziervogel said.
Craigieburn parliamentarian Dinuki Rajapaksha said the group realised there were gaps in existing legislation and gambling corporations were “kind of exempt” from the current rules, which is why they chose the topic.
“Our bill proposed an alteration of language and themes surrounding gambling advertising, extending current gambling advertising regulations to social media platforms, assembling a Regulation of Victorian Gambling Services Commission to investigate political donations made by the gambling industry and mandating age verification on online gambling apps.”
During the camp, they were trained, participated in mock debates, selected their chamber leaders and held chamber meetings.
The sitting week was held at the end of June, where they attended parliament and debated the bill, which passed the legislative council and gained assent from the Youth Governor.
Mr Ziervogel said the experience of the youth parliament was “incredible”.
“There’s so many amazing young people in Victoria… it was such a special space, because I think there were over 100 young people,” he said.
“The future’s in really, really good hands.”
