The Changing Face of Australia: Promises of a New Generation
Delivered by Jason Yat-Sen Li
29 August 2000
Featured
on the ABC's Australian Story in March 2000, Jason Yat-Sen Li is the
Australian born son of Asian migrants. After completing a law degree
in 1995 he went to Europe to be a Judge's Associate at the UN Balkans War
Crimes Tribunal in The Hague. On his return to Australia, Li was an
outstanding, publicly elected young delegate to the Australian
Constitutional Convention. His lecture touches on issues of
reconciliation, multiculturalism, the republic, technology and peace, and
provides a youthful perspective.
Introduction by Elizabeth Ho, Director of the Hawke Centre
Our Vice-Chancellor, Professor Denise Bradley, would like to send her
greetings to you all, unfortunately she is unable to be here tonight. The
University of South Australia is very proud to be hosting this lecture which
is a Hawke Centre lecture; we are very pleased in particular to welcome
students of Pembroke School, Trinity College and Eynesbury here this evening
and also members of the Institute of Public Administration Young
Professionals Forum and also members of Youth Plus ... as you can see that I
am starting with the younger generation this evening.
I would also like to acknowledge the Law Society for their support and
welcome representatives of the legal profession here tonight. Members of
Amnesty International, the Multicultural and Ethnic Affairs Commission and
the Global Education Centre are also here this evening. We also hope that
our patron Dr Lowitja O'Donoghue will be able to join us later.
And now to our speaker. On every seat you have some details about our
forthcoming lecture program and we have Peter Sellars on The Politics of
Architecture and later on 8 November, Dr Mamphela Ramphele, who is the
Managing Director of the World Bank who will be here to talk about Human
Development. But we also have some brief information about our speaker,
Jason, and if you look at that brief outline you will note that his
commitment to humanitarian values, to justice and to the importance of the
political process in Australia is articulated in those very brief words.
A colleague of mine at the University of South Australia, Dr Anne Hawke,
addressed the Institute of Public Administration last week and in the course
of her very erudite discussions on the economy and worker productivity and
workplace change and the impact of training, I asked her a question about
her time as the youngest Commonwealth Public Service Director in the early
'90s and what she would have done differently, if she had been back in that
position, knowing what she knows now about all of these matters. Rather than
give us a dry managerial answer, she said quite simply; "I would have been
more courageous. I would have not stopped myself from saying what I believed
in when I was present with older people and I would have believed enough to
say what was important to me." Those of us who know Anne know that she is,
in fact, courageous but I think all of us, as we have taken note of where
Jason Li is heading, have seen the signs of courage, the generosity to share
his perspectives and so I would like you to join with me in welcoming him.
Thank you.
Jason Yat-Sen Li
Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. I am just getting used to this
microphone and setting myself up here. This has got to be the largest
lectern that I have ever spoken in front of. Thank you, Liz, for that very
kind introduction. I always tend to get the nicest introductions at academic
institutions that I speak at. The last one that I did was for the University
of Canberra and the organisers there in the program had mistakenly referred
to me as Dr Jason Yat-Sen Li. There is no such luck this time.
I am very, very happy to be in Adelaide. It has been quite a while since I
have been here, so thank you sincerely to the Hawke Centre for inviting me
to talk to you tonight. There is a real lack to my mind of these sorts of
institutions that provide a prestigious and an influential forum for the
discussion of truly national and international issues. So I am very, very
grateful for this opportunity.
I am also very sick at the moment with the flu, so if I cough after I have
said something, that does not mean that I did not believe in what I just
said, I just coughed.
The topic for my talk tonight is Australia's Young People - The Promise of a
New Generation and to set the tone for this I would just like to perhaps
give a bit of a verbal snapshot as to what comes into our mind immediately
when we say "young Australians", or "youth"; fashion conscious consumers,
the Internet, independence and dependence, education and training, drug and
alcohol problems, optimism and despair, young life and suicide, dole
bludgers, dance music, multicultural pro reconciliation, environmentally
conscious, voted "No" to the Republic, laid back, easy-going, occasionally
dope-smoking but in the end, so diverse that they probably can't be summed
up in any general statements.
For some background information we do have some vague statistics. Australia
has about 2.6 million young people aged between 15 and 24, that amounts to
about 14 per cent of the population. That is quite a lot. Nearly 15 per cent
of all young people were born overseas, mostly in the United Kingdom and
Ireland. 2.7 per cent are indigenous Australians. The youth unemployment
rate hovers at around 29 per cent. That is quite a lot too. The notion of
youth has always been an important part of our history. Images of youth are
everywhere in our national identity. Our nationhood is nascent in comparison
to the 40,000 years of indigenous occupation and yet the earliest
nationalistic images of The Bulletin magazine depict the nation as a young
white boy. A young white boy under the paternal scrutiny of Britain.
In forging a national identity our history has celebrated the romantic
youthfulness and the vitality of the digger, the surf life-saver, the Man
from Snowy River. In the decade leading to Federation of the colonies some
of the most iconic and important figures of the time helped to imagine
distinctive Australian identity. These figures were themselves young men.
Their names are still central to our own national imaginings. Banjo
Patterson was only 26 years old, Henry Lawson and Steel Rudd were in their
early 20s. Arthur Streeton was 23. These young citizens embodied the
youthful nation. They helped shape Australian political and cultural life
and it is largely due to them that when we recapture and remember that time
we conjure up images of youthfulness and optimism.
Interestingly, Federation did not institutionalise egalitarianism or
democracy. Rather, Federation was about protecting Australia's British
integrity by excluding non-whites, including the threats of the 'black
curse' and the 'yellow peril'. As such, in the lead-up to the centenary of
Federation on January 1 we should not see Federation as our great democratic
moment. Federation was founded on the desire for a white Australia and a
privileged new form of Britisher, the Australian type, personified in young
men like Lawson.
In 1909 the influential British study, the Commonwealth of Australia
described the Australian type and I will quote:
This is the true Australian, a curious restlessness also marks his character
due to the vicissitudes of his life and the speculative spirit of the
country. It is to this type of restlessness, energy and daring that
Australians by birth and adoption converge.
Now, that was almost 100 years ago and I wondered how the British conceive
of the Australian type now, and after some searching it suddenly hit me, my
God, what if it is Shane Warne. If we recast Federation as the moment where
citizenship to Australia was excluded on the basis of race and the assertion
of a masculine ideal, the promise of the youthful nation in 1901 is not our
democratic watershed. Perhaps that is yet to come and perhaps that is when
we achieve our own Australian Head of State. If it has been 100 years since
the currency of these sentiments, have we really progressed all that far
from when these ideas were held?
I would like to tell you a little bit about myself and my background at this
point. I was born 28 years ago at Paddington Women's Hospital in Sydney. I
grew up playing touch football with my mates on the grassy playgrounds of
Kingsgrove Public School. I grew up with the sea by my side and having lived
overseas, in Europe and in different places for as long as I have, I would
often find myself returning to the sea sometimes, when I was reflective of
when the heart was low. And if you stand there, regardless of where you are,
and you close your eyes you can hear the sounds of the gulls and the waves
crashing and you can feel the presence of that immense body of water in
front of you and for that moment you would feel ground and you would feel at
home because it reminded you of Australia.
But then I could walk into a bar, it would be in Holland or in France or
wherever and inevitably when you strike up a conversation people ask you
where you are from and I would always say, "I'm Australian, mate" and so
often the reply to that would be, "Oh, you know, you don't look very
Australian. Are you sure you're not Japanese? Oh, Jeez, I don't know, let me
just check my passport".
About a year ago I was outside of a petrol station in Port Stevens when a
car load of guys yelled at me, "Go home, get on your boat" and I would have
said to them if I had not driven off so quickly, I would have said to them,
"Look, this is my home. My first connection to Asia was a two-week holiday
in Hong Kong with my mum when I was 17 so if Australia is not my home, then
there would be no other place." During the Republic campaign as well, after
at 60 Minutes program, someone rang up a Sydney talk-back program and said,
"Look, you can't listen to that Jason Li fellow, he's not a real
Australian." It is with this background and in this framework that I would
like to look at Australia's young people, the promise of a new generation,
and I would like, if I may, ask you to keep this question in mind when you
are listening. What is going to happen to our political landscape when
people from this generation of young Australians grow up, if you would, and
take the reins of political and social and corporate power.
Now, this question came about because one of my colleagues in New York,
where I recently got back from, and somebody who became a very good friend
was a young Iranian woman, and I would often ask her, "What is life like in
Iran for a young person in so repressive a regime?" And she said, "You'd be
surprised", and I was. She said, "Life for young people in Iran is not a
hell of a lot different than it is anywhere else in the world" she said. "We
have parties, we smoke, we drink alcohol, you know, we have sex, we even
take drugs, the only difference is it all happens in the private realm,
rather than in the public realm. It all happens behind closed doors." And
she was absolutely convinced that when that generation of young Iranians
takes control of the country, becomes the decision-makers, the political
elite, if you would have it, the people who run the country, it will
fundamentally change the Iranian nation for the better in her mind, and for
the better in mine.
So can we apply that sort of thinking to Australia? What is going to happen
to Australia? What is going to happen to the way we think about a lot of the
issues that we seem to be struggling so much with at the moment? Will we be
a republic? Will we finally solve the problems and the issues with
reconciliation? Will we bury the multicultural debate once and for all? In
short, what exactly is the promise of the new generation? This generation,
to my mind, offers us something quite rare in our austere, adult world and
that is optimism and freshness. The promise of the future is the unfinished
challenge of nationhood and that the young men and women of Australia today
can build an understanding of citizenship that is based on inclusiveness.
In comparison to the first generation of the Australian type at 1901 the new
generations of young Australians are the first to have grown up in truly
multicultural polity and it is this generation that can genuinely reject the
link between citizenship and race and it is this generation, I hope, that
create a definition of being Australian which is de-linked from membership
of any particular group, other than the group we call Australia. So this is
a citizenship not of cultural sort of identification, not of what we are but
of participation, what we do. You become part of the group we call Australia
by contributing to its production and its reproduction.
Today, Australia stands at a cross-road, I think. We have moved barely
noticeably into the new millennium, our third century of modern citizenship
and it is no surprise that we are confronting these issues of our identity.
Reconciliation is the challenge to understand our past with honesty and
courage and to build upon that. Multiculturalism, as an expression of social
reality on the one hand and policies to reconcile equality indifference in a
population of increasing diversity on the other. And then there is my
particular hobby-horse, the Republic, which to me is an acknowledgment of
our maturity as a people, knowing where our destiny lies and in whose hand
it lies. A progressive step into the future.
These are the intangible issues of a nation now, which I think is looking at
itself in the mirror and asking itself, "Who am I? Am I beautiful or ugly?
Am I good or wicked? How do I treat my citizens and what does the future
hold for me?" These are, as Lindsay Tanner calls them, issues of Australia's
soul and they are inextricably linked to one another. They share a common
logical and intellectual platform.
So what I want to propose - and if you disagree with me, I would like this
to be slightly interactive as well so if you fundamentally disagree with me
in anything, please shout it out. What I want to propose is that it is in
respect of these intangible issues of the soul primarily that we will see
the clearer shift, as this generation of young Australians takes control of
the country, if you will. Young Australians are the visible and identifiable
agents of change. This is exactly the change that other generations might
find overwhelming, frightening, powerless to control. Our generation
intensifies the questions of national importance because we seem to
represent a unique, historical moment.
We are no longer the white Australian type. Many of us are children of
migrants. Those of us who are born overseas, more of us come from Asian
countries than we do from European. One in five of us has been raised in a
one-parent household. We are deferring marriage and preferring de facto
relationships. We are living with our parents for longer, our faces reflect
a culturally diverse nation. Who are we as Australians now? What does an
Australian look like? Can I ever go into a pub in Europe and go, "I'm
Australian" and they go, "Ah, that's right, you're Australian." What are the
things that bind us together as a people?
I am confident that our generation will end the multicultural debate once
and for all. Hugh McKay last year reported a surge in Australian optimism
and one of the reason he cites for this is that he says that Australians are
beginning to adapt to the changes that are re-shaping our society and I
think that young Australians will see this adaptation to a far more
completed stage. You see, most of us have grown up with diversity. We have
built ourselves from the plurality that surrounds us. For many of us it has
always surrounded us, in our playgrounds, in the streets, in our schools, it
is everything that we know and so here is the chance to finally get right
what has been so wrong in the multicultural debate and that is the reason
why it has been so divisive.
I think the fundamental misunderstanding about multiculturalism so far is
that it has been a static multiculturalism. In other words, it has been
about tolerating distinct cultures that will remain distinct. The Italians
versus the Greeks, versus the Chines, versus the Vietnamese, versus the
Anglos and having to tolerate all these distinct parts of the Australian
society. And we know now - and I think that young Australians know because
they have seen how this is wrong. We know that culture evolves. Culture is
carried by individuals and as individuals change and evolve, so does the
culture they carry.
My grandmother migrated from Hong Kong in 1955 and I used to watch her, she
used to pray every night before she went to sleep and I used to watch her in
her big living room and she had three shrines up in her living room, three
different corners. In the first shrine was a Buddha with 12 arms and 12 legs
and two heads that was meant to symbolise good health and prosperity. And
grandma would pray in front of the Buddha. And then she would move a bit to
her right where there was a porcelain figure of the Virgin Mary and she
would pray in front of the Virgin Mary and then she would move again to her
right where there was shrine with the ashes of my grandfather and she would
pray in front of the ashes of my grandfather.
I would watch this as a boy and it struck me, this is what happens to
individuals when they are transplanted from one cultural context to another.
This is a very intimate and personal journey that people make over a course
of a decade or perhaps longer. This is the evolution in individuals and the
evolution of culture that we see happening in a multicultural country such
as Australia. But then again, maybe grandma was just trying to hedge her
bets.
Most of us have seen how as individuals interacting evolve, so does the
culture they carry and they reproduce. It is nonsense to suggest, as some
have, that Australia is becoming Asianised. I think it is more accurate to
suggest that the Asian Australians who come here, or the Asians who come
here are becoming Australianised not because they are forced to, not because
of any particular Government policy or that they are losing their Asianness
or their Asian values but simply as part of a broader irresistible process
of them interacting with far greater social forces such that they imbue
those forces and at the same time they contribute their own particular
culture to the broader whole.
We are all part of this dynamic, evolving, morphing mass that we call
Australia. This is not static but this is what I would like to call
evolutionary multiculturalism and that is something I think that young
Australians will confront sooner or later in their lives and in their
dealings with the broader Australian community. So even those who might
still be labelled as racist, I do think it is just a matter of time and as
they interact and have more positive experience with people and Australians
from different cultures they will break down the stereotypes and the
prejudices that they have and they will realise that it is diversity that
unites us and makes us strong.
The Indonesian motto is Diversity and Unity. This could be rephrased as
Unity Despite Diversity. Young Australians, I think, could adopt a similar
but radically different motto: Unity Through Diversity. Paradoxically, it is
the difference we all share that makes us all the same. In 1998 young people
in the largest capital cities and the smallest town led protests against
Pauline Hanson's One Nation. In Bendigo, for example, nearly 1000 high
school students forced the cancellation of a public appearance by Pauline by
singing, "We are Australian".
This demonstrates that despite former political neglect and disengagement of
young people, they have strong political views, especially in relation to
the future and the face of the country. In 1998 young Australians also
played a large role in protests and activism at Jabiluka, in opposition to
the Federal Government's waterfront reform and the failure to embrace
reconciliation. In all of these instances at issue were fundamental notions
of Australian identity. Paradoxically, however, young Australians were the
second largest group behind over 55-year olds to vote No for a Republic.
A recent Youth Partnership Study on what young people think about the future
surmised that they do have the capacity for idealism, altruism and optimism,
which is in greater need of recognition and encouragement. The study
included a national poll of over 800 young Australians aged 15 to 24. It
found that despite these general positive sentiments the young Australians
did not have an optimistic view of the future. They saw society as motivated
by individual greed and selfishness. They wanted greater emphasis on values
of community, family and the environment. They thought that Australia lacked
a coherent vision for the future.
What is becoming clear in all of this is that young Australians have
political concerns that are fundamentally different from traditional
political priorities. The environment and reconciliation are key issues from
which young Australians generally support. The National Youth Round Table in
1999 found that 85 per cent of young people consider reconciliation to be
very important. Polling of young people by the Australian Democrats in 1988
found that 65 per cent believed that Australians were racist and 54 per cent
believed that the Prime Minister should apologise to the Stolen Generations.
In other words, these are the areas where the national leadership has failed
to reflect the values of the next generation. In more and more areas young
people are embodying a divide in Australian politics and it is in these
areas that I am reasonably confident the complexion of the Australian polity
may shift in the future. Or will it? Maybe it won't happen. How do we
understand this difference in what young people find intrinsically
important, what they want to get involved in politically and what the
mainstream traditional, political concerns are? Can we be confident that the
painful, difficult and often divisive struggles we have today over our
identity will be resolved naturally with the passing of a generation? Can we
sit back and wait?
I think there is two problems with this. Two problems with being complacent
about it. The first is that there is a chance that our young people will
lose their optimism and compassion. They may well become bitter and cynical.
This could happen if young people continue to be isolated, marginalised and
victimised in Australian society. And if cynicism does come with age perhaps
there is a role for the most optimistic part of our society to have a direct
input into setting a social vision for the future of the country.
Secondly, why should resolution of these problems have to wait a generation?
Why can't the opinions and the views of this very large and legitimate part
of our population be taken into account now? What does it do to the psyche
of young Australians and their ability and desire to be active citizens if
they are ignored and how can we achieve greater input, greater confidence,
greater interest by our youth in the political process? In short, what can
we do to realise the promise of the next generation? It is to this issue
that I would like to turn right after I have a glass of water.
Young people are our future. Nobody is going to disagree with that. That is
so trite, Whitney Houston wrote a really bad song about it a decade or so
ago. What astonishingly is not acknowledged, however, is that they are
consequently our most important resource. Intelligent corporations have for
a very long time acknowledged the need for succession planning and the value
in human resources. Ansett Australia, Westpac, Proctor & Gamble, they all
have elaborate and very well run management sort of nurturing programs where
they recruit bright, young people and they groom them to be managers of the
future to ensure the success and the continued viability of their
organisations.
Rupert Murdoch has been grooming Lachlan for ages. I'm sure Kerry Packer has
been grooming Jamie. My father, however, owning a small electrical
engineering company and upon discovering I was useless at maths, didn't
really bother. Neither does Australia, it seems. While in the abstract the
Australian nation values and prides itself on its youthful image in reality
our younger citizens are among the most under-valued and neglected parts of
society. They are excluded from all levels of decision-making. They are
hopelessly under-represented in parliaments. They pay taxes as adults but
they are not paid as adults.
Succession planning means investing in the future today. The rewards could
be great. A revisioning of participatory social democracy, a culture of
inclusion and diversity and a diffusion of political power. Most
importantly, it could mean a compassionate society with a clear sense of who
it is, where it came from and where it will go. The reality, however, is
that everywhere there are the warning signs of the social cost of excluding
young people from participating in the life of the nation. There is a very
well documented sense of despair, disengagement, helplessness and
hopelessness.
Yet images of young Australians are everywhere. We are the face of the
modern consumer society. My topic this evening has already sold Pepsi-Cola
for over a decade. Archetypal images of young white western people sell the
world a diversity of modern essentials. The striking exemption being Mr
Okamura who sells NEC products and is one of my favourite people on TV.
Images of young people are the currency of advertising executives who sell a
utopian lifestyle, a world without the burden of responsibility, full of
optimism, vitality and beauty. However these images do not really reflect
the social and political standing of young Australians. The reality of young
lives is very, very different as we know. Young people live with the fringes
of society. In almost every area of government responsibility there has been
at best a neglect of young Australians and their vision for the future. At
worst there is a push towards a more disciplinary government role which
punishes young people and demonises youth.
In a report commissioned by the Government on images of young people in the
media the findings revealed stereotypes of young Australians as alcoholics,
drug abusers, criminals, bludgers and as lazy, complaining and aggressive.
The pessimistic vision of our generation is that above our shared values of
cultural diversity and inclusiveness we also share social disadvantage.
Young Australians born after 1975 face a lower standard of living than their
parents faced. Unemployment today impacts disproportionately on young
people. Young people are also falling through social safety nets. In a
report on the deepening divide of skills in Australia it was noted that 25
per cent of all young people were involved in marginal activity.
Now, that means unemployment or a complete failure to be involved in the
workforce at all or in casual employment without any element of training or
skills development by which they can improve their skills and gain more
meaningful employment in the future. We are staying at home longer. Not
because we want to but because of the increased cost of education and
because of government policies designed to make young Australians dependent
on their parents for longer. Retention rates for high school have plummeted,
even in the last 10 years and of those who don't finish high school one half
will never gain full employment.
These lack of opportunities for young people are a significant challenge for
Australia and despite the moral anxieties that young people embody these new
iconoclastic visions for the nation that is going to turn everything upside
down, in truth young people still strongly identify with the aspirations of
their baby boomer parents. They want to achieve independence, autonomy, the
capacity to consume and to acquire qualifications and a career.
In other areas young Australians also face distinct challenges. In a
national report on the health and well-being of young people published last
year the prevailing health trends were those of alcohol dependence,
depression and suicide. The suicide rate for young men has increased 70 per
cent in the last 20 years. Why is this happening? How can we be so dumb? Why
are we letting this happen? Why, if young people of the future of our
nation, why are they being treated so poorly?
Before I go into some of the possible reasons why, I would like to make a
disclosure at this stage. I have been one of the lucky ones. I have
experienced only to a very limited extent some of the hopelessness and the
helplessness that other young Australians have experienced. I have had a
really privileged upbringing. My parents made sure I had the best education
and the best opportunities and I really can't fault them for anything,
except for maybe perhaps a little bit of an over-emphasis in true Confucian
fashion on education. I remember three weeks before my high school
certificate when my girlfriend at the time ruthlessly broke up with me and I
was completely devastated and useless and could not study. All my mother
said to me was, "Just study hard and when you become rich doctor, the women,
they flock to you".
The reason for our neglect of young Australians are complex and
multi-faceted and I would like to offer you too of my view. Firstly,
Australians have been reluctant in recent years to engage in issues of
national importance. They would rather focus on things that are more local,
more personal to them, and I think this is because the bigger the issue the
more powerless people have been feeling to do anything about it.
The second reason revolves around the nature of our system of democracy. Our
Federal Government and thus our parliaments and everything connected with
that is subject to election by a hard-fought adversarial procedure every
three years. Now, there may well be very good reasons for this. This is
accountability through the ballot box but there are also negatives and most
notably a democratic system that is inherently incongruous with long term
national planning and consensus building. What is more, these electoral
contests are closely fought and won. Both parties now are driven by the
almost mathematical political need to engage with middle Australia and the
swinging voter.
Mapping the concerns and the preferences of these key groups has become
crucial to short term political survival and as we have seen these are
precisely the groups that either do not understand young Australians or feel
threatened or anxious about the lifestyles, the identities and the attitudes
of young Australians. In other words, young people are way out of the
picture. Those under 18 don't even have the right to vote. There are very
few young politicians. There are no direct avenues for young people to have
their input into government decision-making. The only peak independent
national youth research and advocacy body, APAC, was de-funded by the
Federal Government in 1998 and, sadly, has had its voice fade ever since.
If things have not changed since I was at high school, we learned almost
nothing about our system of government, about our Constitution, about our
democratic system. By the time I finished Year 12 I could write a 15-page
essay on Michael Gow's play Away in my sleep, regardless of what the
question was. I could give you the atomic weights of about half the known
elements in the world. I could ask for the nearest post office in German,
you know, "Wo ist das Post?" I could do simple calculus but I didn't have a
clue about how our governmental and our political system worked. That was
also the year that I voted for the very first time.
What will it take to effect a fundamental shift in thinking? How do we
foster an understanding that the future of Australia offers us tremendous
opportunities but only if we prepare for it. Only if we implement
generational change within the social, cultural and political structures of
the nation. Succession planning means engaging young people in the
mechanisms of decision-making and thinking about Australia's future. Young
people offer distinct perspectives to the large questions of national
identity Australia faces. Succession planning means the opportunity for
young voices to be heard within a framework that is legitimating rather than
alienating. It means that these issues cease being marginalised or minimised
as merely youth issues and become the concern of the whole nation. It shifts
the debate away from the partisan nature of politics.
On top of this succession planning can be a unifying agenda. It can bond
Australians together across all political persuasions through a common
desire to serve and nurture our future generations. Succession planning
means putting in place the social and political infrastructure that will
enable young Australians to express themselves through our common political
institutions. Most significantly, it means developing a deeper and more
sophisticated notion of participatory democracy. That process must begin
with instilling in young Australians an understanding and a belief in
democracy. It does not have to be boring. It can be more than boring
historical texts in primary school.
Democracy can be invigorating. It can be empowering and it can be exciting.
My mother is a primary school teacher at Hurlstone Park Primary School in
New South Wales and she does something really interesting, I think, and this
is the second graders who are about 8 or 9 years old. At the start of the
semester all the decisions about the class-room, mum lets the students
decide, from whether the students are forced to sit boy/girl, boy/girl,
boy/girl, to how the naughty children are to be punished, whether the
posters should go on this wall or whether they should go on that wall, and
what she does is she divides the class into two, she makes them debate the
issues and then they vote by a show of hands and she actually implements
what the children decide.
Now, what this does - I think this is fantastic, because what it does is two
things, it encourages the children to have pride in their opinions and it
gives them the confidence to express their opinions. Secondly, and perhaps
more importantly, it shows them that this action, voting, actually affects
the world around them. It actually affects the environment in which they
live. In this way young Australians can be shown that their opinions do
matter, that they do have important roles to play in Australian society and
we need to think about starting this process, right at the very beginning,
right from the beginning of school.
There was a story about a certain Western Australian politician who was
having a dinner at a very posh function a couple of years ago and there was
only one piece of butter on the table with each bread roll, so he called the
waiter over, who was a young fellow, and he said, "Look, there is only one
piece of butter with my bread roll. I want another piece of butter", and the
young waiter said, "Look, I'm sorry, sir, there is only one piece of butter
per guest." The WA politician was indignant. He said, "Do you know who I am?
I was a Rhodes Scholar, I was the youngest person elected to representative
office when I was 30 and then I was the youngest person elected to Federal
Parliament when I was 32. That is very nice", said the waiter, "Do you know
who I am?" He said, "I am the man who is in charge of the butter." I was
going to explain the meaning behind that, but I'm sure you can figure that
out for yourselves.
Presently, young Australians are extremely cynical about politics. A study
of Year 11 students in Victoria by the Australian Council for Education in
1988 found that half of the 600 respondents had no interest at all in
politics. Only 30 per cent thought that politicians were smart and knew what
they were doing and two thirds had doubts as to whether governments actually
cared about people. It is no surprise that the positive manifestations of
youth activism have occurred outside traditional political fora. Young
people identify less with partisan politics and focus more on a core set of
values and ideals that appeal intrinsically to their own self-image as young
Australians.
Another study found that pessimism increases with age. Young people at
school were the most optimistic. Those in their early 20s were the most
pessimistic and sadly for us, I guess, it was in the vein of this pessimism
that the No campaign in last year's Republic referendum tapped so
effectively. The result was completely devastating and there was no sort of
raunchy risque T-shirt branding or funky slogans that the Yes campaign could
put out to turn that around to get over this intrinsic deep-felt cynicism
towards the political process that young people felt. That line, "Say No to
the politicians' Republic" hit the spot big-time with young Australians and
the result was the paradox that the group in Australian society that should
intrinsically have the least connection with the monarch of a foreign nation
actually voted No.
This wasn't an endorsement of the monarchy, this was not because young
Australians love the Queen, obviously, but it was an assertion in very, very
clear terms of their cynicism and their disenfranchisement and their
disengagement with the political process. Now, this is so dangerous and it
is so hurtful in a democracy whereby people's minds and their hearts are so
affected by cynicism that they cannot bring themselves to think rationally
about a progressive change. Perhaps there is my bias coming out there but in
my view a progressive change to the nature of our country.
To answer these problems, let us think about how to re-engage young
Australians with government. We need to set up formal avenues through which
their voices may be brought directly to bear on government decision-making.
There have been recent proposals in New South Wales that young people should
fill government board positions and statutory bodies. Now, I think this is a
good start and similar initiatives should be put in place at a Federal level
and throughout the States. Another way might be to lower the voting age to
16, with voting between 16 and 18 being optional and not compulsory because
I think it is fundamentally unfair that although people aged 16 and 17, they
can work, the can pay taxes, they can get married, they can consent to
heterosexual intercourse but they don't have the basic democratic right to
vote.
More fundamentally still, let us think about how we can move politics beyond
this 3-year cyclical framework to allow it to encompass greater long-term
planning. The Constitutional Convention in February 1998 brought together
members of the Australian Community who were both well-known and unknown.
They were brought together with politicians from all political parties. They
were brought together in a place of unifying significance to Australia, Old
Parliament House. That forum, although at times it was fiery and it was
passionate was in essence a united multi-partisan effort to debate and to
discuss an issue of national concern.
That issue transcended traditional political alliances. Traditional,
political enemies found themselves crossing the floor and becoming allies
and that was remarkable to witness. Perhaps we can have a little think about
replicating this convention model for other issues of national importance
that should transcend the short-term political agenda and I think that one
possible candidate is a convention to develop a long-term, whether it be a
5-year or a 10-year plan for bettering the position of our young people. It
would encompass policy areas, such as citizenship, civics, community,
employment and skills, health, education and welfare.
Young people at the Constitutional Convention were universally praised for
their contribution and I believe they could make an even greater
contribution at a forum such as this. The product could be a communique,
that is non-binding but a guiding declaration of principles and objectives
and yardsticks. A blueprint for a truly consensual, multi-party effort to
look after Australia's future in the best way possible and that is through
its young people. Successive governments' performance in relation to these
yardsticks would become transparent. They would become accountable and
perhaps more importantly, national awareness about the issues that confront
young people will be greatly heightened by this exercise.
Let us also think about how do we rebuild the social infrastructure, to turn
the tide of the increasing isolation of young Australians and the breakdown
of community and spirituality. A parent respondent in Hugh McKay's research
had this to say about suicide. She said:
When you look at suicide one of the real things missing from people's lives
is a sense of belonging. They haven't got it. I think the term is spiritual
anorexia.
Now, I heard it suggested at a forum for Australian churches that the
churches have an enormous role to play in rebuilding this sense of community
and spirituality in the younger generation and I think that that is right.
But in order to effectively do so the churches to my mind have to become
more relevant to young people and that is by re-branding themselves along
the lines and according to the values by which young Australians now live
their lives. By increasing their openness, by increasing their diversity and
their inclusiveness.
So what do you think about all of this? Are you thinking, Jason has got to
be out of his mind? There is no way in the world we are ever going to be
able to do these things? Perhaps it is the optimism of my youth that makes
me feel all this is possible and indeed, if we can achieve it, there will be
flow-on effects to so many other areas of political debate. The entire
political process might take on what I would like to see as a prospective
element and I would just like to turn to this very briefly now, in
finishing. Re-conceptualising the Australian political process' perspective
as planning for the future may offer a way forward in some of our most
difficult and divisive national debates. That would require that our
decision-makers are aware that their decisions are for the future, not just
for the present and that their decisions must withstand scrutiny in the
context of a succession planning model.
One of the most inspiring comments during the Republic debate was made by
the Right Honourable Ian Sinclair, a man not often known for his progressive
and left wing views. But he said this, he got up and he said, "Look, if it
was just up to me, I would be a No voter, but I'm going to vote Yes and I'm
going to campaign Yes because I know that is what my children and my
grandchildren want." And I thought that that was just absolutely fantastic.
Prospective political thinking could mean the way ahead on many of the
issues that divide Australia now. Let us try applying it, for instance, to
in my mind what is a rather manufactured political debate over IVF
treatment. The IVF debate to me seems like one that is directly relevant to
the lives of young Australians but the general tone of the rhetoric so far
as been a reiteration of the desirability of the nuclear family. The
deployment of the mythical - well, mythical in my view - nuclear family is
politically astute but it fails to reflect the true values at stake in this
issue. Patterns of Australian family life are changing and while the nuclear
family has not disappeared and its value for many has not been lost, it is
appearing less and less attractive to many young people.
The most important point is not that the family is nuclear in the
traditional sense, but that it is supportive, loving and stable. Australian
families are now touched by divorce. Many of our generation have been raised
in one-parent households. Between 1986 and 1996 the number of one-parent
families in Australia increased by 50 per cent. This equates to 19 per cent
as a proportion of all families. Furthermore, of these lone-parent families
women headed 87 per cent. It is now estimated that one quarter of all
Australian children will spend at least part of their life in a
single-parent family. Those in de facto relationships are more likely to be
under the age of 35 and these relationships equate to 69 per cent of all de
factos.
The interesting question that the IVF raises is intensely generational.
Young people are predominantly living in relationships other than marriage.
A prohibition on IVF treatment for lesbian women and heterosexual de factos
is antithetical to a generation that has been brought up in many diverse
family structures. And in all the political discourse and the agonising over
the role of morality in politics it is important to note that the greatest
impact of these laws will be on young Australians. The views of older
Australians more inclined to uphold the nuclear family may well push the
debate but it is undoubtedly younger people who will bear the impact of the
removal of these services.
So I am inclined to think that the stance of the Federal Government does not
reflect the attitudes of young people who value the quality of family life
rather than its composition. And yet in this whole political debate, how
often have people thought, what do young people want in this? What is the
best thing for the next generation who will come and take over and take the
reins of the country?
Similarly, in the Republic debate, and I may not be fair in saying this, but
I would like this to be a completely honest discussion forum, I absolutely
understand the position of older Australians who feel a very great
allegiance to traditional Australian values, to the heritage of Australian
institutions, to the Queen herself and to the monarchy, but perhaps there
could be an element of thinking there about what is best for the younger
generation and what sort of an Australia would they like to live in? Because
when it comes to large, national issues such as these the implementation and
the execution of these policy issues will take 5 to 10 years and again it
will undoubtedly be the younger generation that bears its impact and has to
live with its consequences.
So where does this all leave us? We have spoken about the promise of the new
generation, the promise of optimism, social compassion and an inclusive
identity. We have spoken about natural progress, on the identity debates
that are now dividing Australia, reconciliation, multiculturalism and the
Republic. We have spoken about how, if these promises are to be fulfilled to
their full potential we must treat young Australians as our most valuable
resource. This means more than just providing them with adequate
opportunities. This means more than allowing them to get to the starting
line politically. This means arming them with the democratic skills they
need to be active citizens. The way forward offers us not just
inter-generational exchange but inter-generational learning and progression.
The promise of our generation is the promise that our opportunity to leave
our mark on the Australian nation will not be squandered.
In 1994 the Prime Minister, Paul Keating, said: One of the greatest
challenges we face as a nation is to generate a deep sense of optimism
within our young people. We need to do that because without optimism,
without a sense that we do have the wherewithal to build a better future, we
will find no reason to build for that future.
So I would like to finish with a reflection on somebody I once knew. We have
spoken a lot this evening about optimism and despair. A primary school
friend of mine committed suicide when he was 22. At his funeral his father
spoke of how he was a wonderful poet as a boy. His father recalled how, when
Edward was nine, they were walking together one night and there was a full
moon and there was a light wind. Edward noticed how the clouds were playing
hide-and-seek with the moon and he said to his father, "Dad, the moon is not
moving, the clouds are moving past the moon. The moon has no legs. I shall
give the moon my legs and the moon will run with my legs". If we can meet
the challenge of treating our young people as the future of our nation, as a
valuable resource, but perhaps most importantly as young human beings who
need love and compassion, perhaps we can translate some of this optimism to
our austere adult society and perhaps then Edward's dad would be vindicated
when he said, "And I know that the moon has been running with Edward's legs
ever since".
I have a tremendous amount of faith in our generation. This is the
generation that will produce our first female Prime Minister. This is the
generation that will produce our first Prime Minister of non-English
speaking background. This is the generation that will produce an inclusive
Australian Republic and then our first indigenous Australian President. Past
generations have tried to smash down the barriers between races and the
injustices that has caused. This is the generation that can succeed. Thank
you very much.
Elizabeth Ho
Well, as the mother of two teenagers, I have learned a few things tonight, as I'm sure we all have but before we go to a formal vote of thanks, can I perhaps invite you to ask some questions which Jason would be very happy to answer?
Question
Thank you for that, Jason, a most enjoyable presentation. I was very impressed with your showing at the Constitutional Convention indeed, with a lot of the other younger people, showed great advantages for us in the future, but I would just like to ask you, where do your aspirations lie in the political sphere? Where are you going to be to introduce these grand changes that you are offering for the future?
Jason Li
Are you a journalist?
Question
I am not, sir, no.
Jason Li
That is a hard question. I recently got back from New York. My professional
background is in genocide law and human rights law and that is my sort of
other passion in life and one of the things that I have struggled with is
that if your interest is in international human rights and war crimes, it is
quite difficult to be based in Australia to do these things but I did make a
decision very recently to come back home because I do have a sense that my
community is here and I would like to spend more time here. As for
mainstream politics I don't really know yet.
My main concern is the Republic right now and I would like to see that get
up before I think about, you know, where another political avenue might lie
because I do think that any effective move to a Republic has to be on either
a non-partisan or a multi-partisan level and some of the people involved in
the political debate have to be able to work on all sides of politics and
because that is my main concern at the moment, mainstream politics will be
something for the future.
Question
Well, thank you very much indeed for your optimism regarding the young
people in our society. I'm slightly puzzled though, because many of the
surveys which have been taken show that on many issues the generation you
are talking about is more conservative than those who are 10 years older
than them and more conservative than people were in their age group just a
few years ago and I wonder how this will translate into what are global
issues, even if people like working at a community small-scale level,
nevertheless one can't ignore the great global issues.
I am led to think, as I heard today, that the Australian Government has just
announced that Australia will not be signing the optional protocol CEDAW,
that is the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women.
They have announced this today. Is this the sort of thing which is a global
issue which is going to interest young people or is it only old fogies like
me who get very concerned about it?
Jason Li
That is a very good question and it really goes to the heart of how young
people feel a part of or don't feel a part of Australian society at the
moment. I don't think that young people are intrinsically conservative.
Certainly not when it comes to the identity issues that I have been talking
about. I think where their conservatism comes through is as a product of
their political isolation and their political disengagement and the cynicism
towards political processes that I have been talking about and their fear of
being left out of the picture.
The way forward to cure this is in the very broad terms. I mean, I don't
have all the solutions but if we can think about them together as a nation
I'm confident that we can find the solutions to solve these problems. As for
globalisation and things such as CEDAW, which is the Convention for the
Elimination of Discrimination against Women, I don't think any nation lives
in a fire-safe house at the moment and one of the things that our generation
is very much in tune with is the sort of global economy, the sort of global
world and aspects of global culture, technology, you know, being one of the
fine examples.
I think one of the things that we need in Australia when we - I mean, when
you think about technology the things that immediately come to mind are:
materialism, IPOs, you know, young people getting incredibly rich incredibly
quickly, individualism, and it strikes me that there is a very great lack of
an underlying spirituality or a philosophy guiding the development of this
technology for, you know, human development reasons and perhaps this is
something that the Managing Director of the World Bank might talk about.
So there is, I think, a very legitimate and a very achievable area and a way
in which we can utilise something which is very much part of global culture
and part of the global economy and that is the development of technology,
and let the young people, and this younger generation, who are very much in
tune with this technology to apply it and to develop into a system
developing it to a greater good and that way they may feel more in touch and
more in tune and more connected with people beyond their communities and
break down some of the isolation that are making them feel defensive and
embittered.
Question
Firstly, Jason, thank you. A lot of the time people get up and tell young people about the problems that are facing us at the moment. Instead I commend you for offering some solutions which is very rare in these forums, but my question is twofold and relatively simplistic. Firstly, we are not taught, Australian politics as a subject compulsorily at school. Do you think that should occur across the board in all States in the education system? That is one, and two, if offered a great amount of food for thought for a lot of the young people who are here, a lot of people who are about to leave school and begin their careers, but to me, as a young person, it makes my brain hurt, all of this information. What would you say to a young person who came up to you and said, Jason, I want to help out but I don't know where to start. Where would you send them?
Jason Li
Okay, first question first. Yes, I do think that there should be a
compulsory civics education in all schools at a primary and a secondary
level, as long as it is not boring. Now, you know, there is a way that you
can teach civics. Civics is not boring, you know. Aspects of Australian
history may well be boring, depending on how it is taught but democracy and
debate and the exchange of opinions and voting is intrinsically very
empowering, very, very exciting. It can have you, you know, at the edge of
your seat sometimes and if that practical way, if practical democracy can be
taught in our schools effectively, I think that would be such a great thing
and would start our young Australians really on the right foot to being
active citizens.
To a young Australian who came to me and said, how can I get involved in
different things, I would say, seek out - there are a huge number of
initiatives, of public interest organisations, of volunteer associations,
whether it be Amnesty International or Greenpeace or Youth Advocacy bodies,
if you are in the legal profession there are community legal centres. There
are a large variety of very worthwhile causes who are screaming and crying
out for volunteers. I would say this: never be afraid to speak your mind. I
guess I have been very, very fortunate in that, you know, through no
particular genius of my own or whatever things have happened such that, you
know, I am offered platforms where I can get up and talk and people actually
listen to me and I don't believe that the things I have to say are any
particularly more brilliant than any other young Australian can say but what
did happen was that I had the background and the encouragement to actually
speak my mind in the forum that I had available to me.
So perhaps what I would say to young Australians who asked me, how can I get
involved, is: make your voice heard at every opportunity that you can,
whether it be writing letters to the editor or starting up your own
political forum or speaking at existing political forums. And get involved
in politics. Join a party if you need to, if you want to. Run for
preselection if you want to, because we certainly need more young
Australians in Parliament.
Question
Just a very quick question. You touched on a point on the IVF treatment, the changing importance of the nuclear family. Now, just to bring it back to your Chinese culture and how family values and relationships have a very high emphasis, out of curiosity, what do your parents think of your view that maybe the mother and father isn't exactly that important these days?
Jason Li
My mother is the matriarch of the family, as you might have guessed by a
comment I made earlier. I guess to get quite personal, my mother and father
aren't together any more and that in itself really rocked their traditional
upbringings as part of the traditional family, the way the family is
understood and perceived in Chinese culture. The family unit is an intrinsic
part of the social structure and that turned their lives upside down to a
large extent but there are two sides to that. I think one of the advantages
that we have in Australia is that we can take the best from what our many
cultures have to offer.
The advantage and one of the good things about the Confucian view of
families is that when the family is working and when it sticks together it
is an extremely strong and supportive and nurturing environment. The problem
is that when it is not working it can lead to a lot of forced suffering,
particularly for women and before the change in divorce laws in 1975 a lot
of Australian women, even though they were forced to undergo what the law
recognised were cruel beatings, had to wait for a year before they could get
divorced. So there is two sides to these things. My parents have no problem
at all with my views as to the nuclear family. I think that is the way that
they feel themselves and again this harkens back to my earlier point about
how cultures and individual cultures evolve over time.
Elizabeth Ho
I think we are now out of time so I will call the questions to a halt. I am now going to ask Professor Michael Rowan, Pro Vice-Chancellor of the University, to come and give the formal vote of thanks. Thank you.
Michael Rowan
I would just like to add one thing, one matter of fact to what you were
saying, Jason, when you were talking about the condition of youth in
Australia now, and it relates to what you were saying about your lack of
knowledge of Australian politics. In fact, in the South Australian
Certificate of Education in this State there is a compulsory subject in
Australian studies and I don't know the curriculum intimately by any means
at all but I know it was there with the intention that students should not
graduate from high school without some understanding of their society. The
tragedy is that the percentage of young people now going on and completing
Year 12 in this State is below 60 per cent and that, I think, is a State
shame and I would encourage everyone in the audience to find an opportunity
soon to ask a question of the high school principal or a local politician or
a local councillor or a journalist about what is happening to young people
in our schools and why our participation rate should be so low.
Now, I have a confession to make and that is that you have made me feel very
uncomfortable and you have made me feel very uncomfortable because I realise
I am now cast in the role of an older person, giving a vote of thanks to a
younger person and that is something I have so far managed to avoid and I am
not very keen to take the role on. But also I didn't completely agree with
what you said, although I agreed more and more as you went on. I thought you
were going to adopt a position which I would describe as historically
conceited, that is to say, believing that you belong to an extra special
generation and I think that is not only false, but it is dangerous.
It is dangerous because if I go to your question, what is going to happen to
our political landscape when this generation assumes power? If you wait
until you assume power, the answer to your question is not very much more
than what happened when all of the succeeding generations assume power. Not,
I think that we should under-estimate the achievements of succeeding
generations because indeed our society is now very different to what it was
when I was born and when my parents were born and some while before.
So the important thing, I suggest to you, and I will hazard an answer to
your question, is that what will change is when young people don't wait to
assume power before they begin to exercise political influence. And indeed
you did go on in your talk to encourage us, or encourage young people just
in that direction. What is important, I think, if youth is to make a
difference that they act when they are young, that they act when their stake
in the future outweighs their stake in the present and in the past. To use
another of your words, when their politics is prospective, rather than
retrospective, and in this, Jason, you provide an excellent and an
enthusiastic example of young people's engagement in the political system
and we are grateful for that and we are grateful for your talk this evening.
Thank you.
Elizabeth Ho
Thank you very much for your attendance and we do hope that you will be able to come to our future program. You will be very welcome. Thank you.