Statement by: Imogen Kane, Australian Youth Representative to the UN
As delivered

Thank you honourable Chair, to the Third Committee, and to the Australian Government for the opportunity to share Australia's youth perspectives as their Youth Delegate.

I acknowledge that we meet here today on the traditional lands of the Lenape people. I acknowledge the First Nations peoples of Australia, the traditional owners of the unceded land who continue to embrace and nurture the lands, water and skies of Australia through their knowledge and practices.

Young people across Australia, more than ever, are recognising their privilege of growing and living on the lands of Australia's First Nations peoples. For First Nations youth, there are still many challenges to overcome as issues continue to disproportionally affect them.

Climate Change continues to "underpin the possibility of our future". Young people are feeling the "drastic and destructive impacts" not only on our biodiversity, but our communities and on ourselves. Young people's lives are being shaped by the global and systemic issues that deeply affect us all. We have the determination to be part of the solutions side-by-side with you, but as Climate Change worsens, we also face increased hardship with surviving the present.

Today's present includes a cost of living crisis. Particularly exacerbated in Australia's regional and minority communities, many young people share their difficulty in meeting rent in a volatile housing market and whether they have to work today or receive the health services they need. They don't feel they have the skills or knowledge to navigate economic issues, and consistently ask for life skills such as money management, housing and employment. A lack of tangible skills and experience in education, including civics curriculum, has led young people to feel like their education isn't preparing them for their future. How can we just focus on study when becoming concerned with housing stability is now part of growing up?

Concerns about justice and institutions continue to be raised. In regional communities, youth crime is viewed as the pervasive community issue, but young people voice the lack of addressing homelessness, poverty and employment insecurity as contributing factors. In metropolitan areas, it's a concern regarding a lack of transparency in government. Many young people are losing faith in those designed to represent them.

Mental health continues to be prevalent with a lack of youth spaces to genuinely connect. Current mental health initiatives focus on prevention and awareness raising, where the tangible accessibility to mental health professionals in the spaces where young people occupy, are limited, or overwhelmed with need. Not every young person has a supportive caregiver in their life, so services and resources must be accessible for young people to have agency in their health, especially mental health.

The gap is getting larger between youth, and the policymakers and advocates who speak on their behalf. Young people are experiencing youth consultations and advisory groups as tokenistic in nature, concerned with the lack of transparency on their impact. Opportunities to advocate are typically only accessible to those who have financial resources, parental support, private education or professional networks. These barriers and the prevalence of policy considerations without any young people lead to ideas that are simply out of touch and based on assumptions about young people.

What is happening on the ground is not being captured in youth consultation and policy. It has always been necessary to not only address youth issues but to build a government that views all issues with a youth perspective; a government that enthusiastically involves and works with their future generations.

We now must ensure these mechanisms at all governance levels, including the new UN Youth Office, truly captures the nuanced voices, experiences, innovations, and forever shaping attitudes of our young people.

Youth participation avenues need to be designed with accessibility, transparency and a culture of value from their foundations. Youth from a variety of backgrounds need to be present and enabled to be active participants. For too long, the burden for youth representation has been placed on young people. It has been us reaching out to have our say, not that their representatives go out to find us.

Greater genuine commitment to reducing inequality and meaningful youth representation and codesign is critical to achieving progress. Young people are the future custodians, but are importantly citizens of today's societies. We are always speaking, we want to be heard and we want to be a part of the solutions. The question is, will you listen closely and will you act with us?