A funny thing is happening in the lead-up to the 2019 federal election: young people, a traditionally apathetic mix of first-time voters and too-young-to-be-voters, are disrupting the conventional narrative.
The youth enrolment rate is at an all-time high of 88.8%, and evidence shows that in contrast to earlier generations, millennials are not becoming more conservative as they age. Technologies often derided as encouraging narcissism and other antisocial behaviour are instead being used for political activism. Young people are demanding a seat the table on a diverse set of issues: house prices, marriage equality, insecure work and pill testing among them, and reactionary calls for the young to stay in their lane are simply adding fuel to the fire.
But the game-changer has been the School Strikes 4 Climate (SS4C) movement, a response to successive governments’ inaction on climate change. Founded by then 15 year old activist Greta Thunberg in Sweden, SS4C has since gone global, with chapters of high school pupils organising strikes during school hours in their home countries and cities to demand leadership on the climate catastrophe.
You can read the rest of this article at the New Economy Journal website.
Jacob Debets 