Candidates put under the spotlight

Meg Carter, 18, of Laharum, is a Horsham College year-12 student who completed three year-12 subjects in year 11. As a result, she has been able to incorporate a first-year Deakin University journalism subject into her Victorian Certificate of Education studies as a participant in a Deakin Accelerate program. Ms Carter, with a keen interest in current affairs and considering a career in a writing-related industry, has used Saturday’s election as the subject of a story-writing assignment. As part of her assignment, Ms Carter interviewed four of the 13 candidates standing for the seat of Mallee. Here is her story based on the result of her interviews –

Young people of the Mallee are after more from their politicians this election, and some candidates want to deliver.

The Mallee seat is of prime interest to its voters now more than ever.

On Saturday Australians will be paying attention to the seat after recent minister, Nationals Member Andrew Broad, became embroiled in a ‘sugar baby’ scandal.

We contacted four Mallee candidates to discuss the strategies in place to target youth and explore perspectives on the importance of young people’s influence in Australian politics.

When asked about strategies in place to target youth in the Mallee, new Nationals’ candidate Anne Webster deflected the conversation.

Recent budget allocations dedicated

to supporting regional sport and the Nationals’ ability to represent regional Australia seemed to be of more interest to Ms Webster.

She simply acknowledged a problem with the lack of adolescent engagement, but believed the majority of people aged 18 to 35 didn’t show an interest in their political landscape.

“I think we’re in big trouble,” she said.

“We’ve moved into a culture that is pretty me-centred and individualistic.”

As well as interviewing candidates and in an attempt to gauge adolescent Mallee constituents’ perspectives, we asked 100 random 17 to 23 year-olds to take part in a survey. Responses showed only 53 percent of people were even aware of the upcoming election.

Additionally, the survey contained a question that queried respondents on whether they thought their voices were being heard in Australian politics.

The most common answer was ‘no’ with 36 percent of people believing they were not being listened to by our government.

Candidates Jason Modica, Chris Lahy and Cecilia Moar were happy to discuss the topic of youth engagement and involvement.

Independent candidate Mr Modica spoke about his own research regarding what he believed to be an essential question: Why are young people disengaged with politics?

“Firstly it’s about education,” he said. “And it’s secondly about engaging what they want, and then reflecting that back to your nation’s capital and saying we need these thing.”

Citizens Electoral Council candidate Mr Lahy responded with ‘great’ concern for youth access to education within regional Australia.

“They all have to leave our region to get an education and you know what, they mightn’t come back,” he said.

“We know that young people are struggling. I would like to see young people have an ability to feel like they’re in control.”

Independent Ms Moar has been campaigning on social media to encourage young people to register and vote.

“That’s what I’m trying to do, is actually, really, just start the conversation,” she said.

“As soon as you show an interest and ask the question, they’ve always got some ideas.”