Speech Transcript

Transcript of the Video compilation of the 2020 Youth Summit

The Hon Julia Gillard MP

This 2020 Youth Summit is the opening event of something very unique in this country's history.

The future doesn't start from scratch. That we always, in thinking about the future, have to think and reflect on the past. And of course your Youth Summit is the tip of an iceberg. It's the end of a very inclusive process for young people around the country.

Your discussions are going to be building on the ideas that came through the 2020 School Summits held in more than 500 schools and involving literally thousands of young Australians.

Hugh Mackay, Author and Social Researcher

You've grown up in this rather turbulent period of social and cultural and economic and technological revolution and you've adapted to it. Now is the time to prove that you have something to offer. That you are ready to create a more co-operative and less competitive society. That you're prepared to show us how to live in a more communitarian and less individualistic society. That you know how to put material values in their place. That you know how to think globally but act locally.

Ben Kent, Delegate

This is the first chance that the youth of Australia have really been given a formal voice in Australian politics and the Australian landscape in general. I think it's just an amazing opportunity and who wouldn't want to come and talk about the future of our country.

Naomi Godden, Delegate

To me personally, I want to make sure that rural young people have a strong voice in Government and our needs are heard and met. So that's what I am really advocating for. And I think that if this Government does commit to rural young people and young people in general having a voice in Government and genuine reciprocal dialogue, then we will actually see change.

Hayley Bester, Delegate

That when we're consulting with people we consult with young people - young, old, middle aged.

Delegate

This is Parliament House, it's the people's house.

Hugh Evans, Co-Chair 2020 Youth Summit

All across Australia, young people are shaping the future of our great nation. They are here this weekend because they believe that change is possible and that we can be a generation that really tackles some of the greatest moral and social challenges of our time.

Minister Kate Ellis, Co-Chair 2020 Youth Summit

When we're talking about Australia in 2020 we're involving in that conversation the people that will be the parents, the business leaders, the community leaders, indeed, possibly the politicians of that time to be amongst the conversation and start working now to put those plans into action.

Simon Sheikh, Delegate

I think what I'd like to see come out of this Summit are a couple of things. First of all, we need to create a more democratic society which involves young people and the direct thing that can come out of this is more opportunities for young people to become engaged in discussions around the future of this nation and around the political sphere, or around the policies that our Government takes up.

Elliott Bledsoe, Delegate

Creativity plays a very important role in stimulating economics and innovation and that if we want a truly innovative economy that we need to really value creative thinking as an entire process and that comes out of creativity as a general art form.

Delegate

Giving us a voice is actually something to start to empower us and it's a very smart thing because it's going to start to give us some hope for the future.

Delegate

What we want to see in 2020 and not even just looking at - looking at a vision in terms of what can achieve - well actually what we want to achieve, so looking, you know, the sky is our limit.

Michael O’Meara, Facilitator 2020 Youth Summit

They haven't come together to just listen and just come up with ideas for Government to act on. They've actually come up with ideas and with a vision for this country that they're prepared to work towards.

The Hon Kevin Rudd MP, Prime Minister

When we say we've opened the windows of Government to bring in ideas from the community - we're serious. When we say we open the windows of Government to hear what youth has to say - we're actually dead serious. Because if the nation's to go forward, we've all basically got to be on the same bus.

Michael O’Meara, Facilitator 2020 Youth Summit

When you get a group of passionate young people together and instead of focusing on all the problems of the world, you actually focus on - on the best of their past. When you actually ask them about the stuff that excites them in life, the stuff that they're proud of already as young people in their communities and in their families and in this country in terms of what they've done and why that's important to them, you get incredible, incredible outcomes. It's from that, that we're able to build a powerful vision for the future of Australia, by this group of your people.

Delegate

I think this whole 2020 Summit has been a remarkable event in my life. I mean I'm just so flabagasted. There's no words of explaining the amount of - just to know that there are people out here that - in Australia - that I know that I've got faith in this country that we can actually make a change and we can make decisions that will effect our future, not only our future, but the futures to come and the generations to come.

Delegate

If you think about it, this is an awesome, awesome opportunity to be able to go out back in the community and maybe in like five years be like - yeah, see that strategy, that's happening - yeah, I was part of that, you know.

Delegate

Even within our groups we are going to keep working on things all over Australia. So to have come together now is going to not only push things towards a 2020 Summit which the Government might take up, but we also have a network ourselves that we can resource ourselves with to further this nation and do the wonderful things that we want to do in all of our communities.

The Hon Kevin Rudd MP, Prime Minister

Thank you for your passion for our nation Australia's future.

Julia Fetherston, Delegate

Yeah, and the thing that I am going to take away from this weekend isn't that young people are the leaders of the future, because the thing that's so obvious from meeting all of you, is that young people are leading their communities now and that young people are playing a role in leading their country now. So the thing I'm taking away is that there is no waiting for time to lead, that that time is now.

[Applause]

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