Sean, the team and I have been working super hard over the last few months to smash out our reporting of the upcoming 2017 Youth Parliament of Victoria. We’ve done our sessions with giants in the Victorian media like Angus Livingston, Meg Raynor and 3AWs Lauren Hilbert, learning all we can about writing and editing Press Gallery-standard articles, polishing our interview techniques and sent off those cheeky pitches to all those relevant news sites.

We plan to cover all Bill topics, speeches and debates this week given by the passionate Youth Parliamentarians. Be sure to check out some of the impressive Bills being brought to this year’s Youth Parliament from across Victoria, such as Hobsons Bay City Council’s ‘Northern Pacific Seastar Regulation’, Gannawarra Shire’s ‘Regulation of Access and Distribution of Irrigation Water’ or ‘Public Transport Accessibility’ by Deafhood, a team comprised of deaf and hard of hearing participants.

We, the 2017 Youth Press Gallery, fully intend to the best of our ability to cover all issues presented at the 2017 Youth Parliament ethically and accurately. We believe that our role as aspiring young writers within the program is to deliver the voice of young people represented at Youth Parliament as fully and as broadly as we can.

As we continue to cover debates, we also encourage interaction and conversation to healthily emerge from them, too. It is imperative that it is understood that whilst this is a mock-up of actual Parliament, these are real issues being tackled by young leaders and experts in the area. The people currently sitting inside the Victorian Parliament House are the next leaders of the world and to take them seriously is to take a positive future generation seriously.

The Youth Press Gallery is comprised of a brilliant team of young writers who are taking this experience to launch themselves into careers in pursuit of their passions. I am grateful to be a part of such a team and incredibly thankful towards our Program Director William Stojkovski and YMCA Victoria for providing so many people with these opportunities.

Continue listening,

Editors Kergen Angel & Sean Wales