00:00 11-year-old Juliet may not be able to vote yet,
00:04 but she's already captured the ear of her local member.
00:08 I feel like we should be taking more action.
00:11 She's written a speech about plastic pollution,
00:14 highlighting its impact on marine ecosystems.
00:17 Banning plastic's important,
00:19 and yet not many people want to do it
00:22 because of all the convenience that it gives people.
00:25 The powerful question she poses to me and other politicians is,
00:28 "Why aren't we doing more?"
00:30 In the coming days, Juliet's speech will get a bigger audience
00:34 when Allegra Spender reads it out in Parliament
00:37 as part of a campaign to platform the voices of people under the age of 25.
00:42 We ask that they give up one of their 90-second constituency statements
00:46 to read a speech written by a young person that they represent.
00:49 Whatever decision they make,
00:51 it's going to impact us more than it's going to impact them.
00:54 So I think it's really important that we have something to say.
00:58 Perhaps unsurprisingly,
01:00 the environment features heavily in this year's speeches.
01:04 16-year-old Krishan Gowda wrote his about shifting to cleaner energy sources.
01:09 We saw the Black Summer bushfires,
01:11 and we saw how many people lost their lives, their homes, their livelihoods.
01:15 We know so many animals lost their lives as well,
01:18 and I think now is the time to be able to transition towards renewable energy
01:22 just because we are running out of time.
01:25 He believes young people have an obligation to speak up on big issues.
01:29 Particularly in a first-world nation, you have no excuse.
01:33 I think it's time that you go out, read your news articles,
01:36 get in contact with your local MP
01:38 and learn about what's happening in Parliament today.
01:40 Young people are leading consent movements,
01:42 they're leading climate movements.
01:44 They are incredibly political actors,
01:46 but their voices aren't always heard in the institutions that represent them.
01:50 The youth voice in Parliament begins tomorrow and runs for three days.
01:55 In that time, federal MPs and senators from across the political spectrum
01:59 will deliver the messages of Australia's politically engaged young people.
02:04 This is about kids not just saying, well, talking to leaders
02:07 or being leaders of the future.
02:09 This is about kids leading now.
02:11 And helping shape the world they will inherit.
02:14 inherit.
02:14 [BLANK_AUDIO]
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