The House: The other MPs at Youth Parliament

Despite being a non-sitting week, last week Parliament was brimming with political intrigue and drama due to Youth Parliament, which occurs once each Parliamentary term, and involves each and every real MP selecting a young person from their electorate to represent them at the event in which participants recreate Parliament.

Minister for Youth James Meager described the event as an opportunity for youth to "learn about effective advocacy and how they can play a role in the decision-making process in the country".

Some may dismiss Youth Parliament as a tokenistic charade for swotty debating students. After being a fly-on-the-wall for the two days, it is clear that the event's impact runs far deeper.

You can listen to The House's audio story from Youth Parliament at the link above.

Youth MPs experience a number of Parliamentary procedures. Among them, the General Debate probably makes for the best watching.

This isn't your typical secondary school speech competition about uniforms in schools or whether pineapple belongs on pizza. Instead, these speeches are often well-researched, compelling, and have a raw, unfiltered passion.

Tanvi Upreti, Youth MP for National's Tom Rutherford, decried the lack of civics education in New Zealand schools, which she said led to young people making uninformed decisions at the polling booth.

"Voting without understanding is not empowerment. It is a cause of silence. It is a manipulation. It is an illusion of our choice," Upreti said.

Although strictly speaking, Youth MPs are non-partisan, representing their community rather than a party, it was clear some of them shared similar concerns as their older counterparts.

One such example was Youth MP for Labour's Ginny Anderson, Tautalaleleia Sa'u. If you closed your eyes, you could have easily been listening in during a strong General Debate speech from any given sitting week.

"Tax cuts for landlords, tax cuts for tobacco companies. But who's paying for it? People like my parents. People living in garages, cars, and overcrowded homes. We are paying for it with our dignity. Cost of living? No, it's the cost of breath, cost of seeing tomorrow, cost of the future, cost of who's going to eat and who isn't. Mr Speaker, at what cost will rangatahi have to pay to live a simple life?"

At every Youth Parliament, there seems to be some sort of controversy. You may recall a hullabaloo about mask wearing during the 2022 event, and action for lowering the voting age.

This time, the contention was over what some participants perceived to be censorship of speeches by the government (through the Ministry for Youth Development).

A recent fixture of Youth Parliament is the Youth Press Gallery, a separate group of 16-24 year olds who get soundbites on the tiles and cover proceedings from the gallery.

"I definitely have enjoyed just seeing the behind-the-scenes, it's kind of humanised a lot of the MPs," Youth Press Gallery member Jonathan McCabe said.

It seemed it wasn't just the Youth MPs who had concerns around censorship. Youth journalists Reuben Smith and Aleksandra Bogdanova said, "[it's] felt like every story… that we have to publish, we have to send over to the ministry to have a look over. And though it's intended to help us, it does come with some consequences."

Smith and Bogdanava are students of the NZ Broadcasting School at the Ara Institute of Canterbury. Both said their brief taste of press gallery life had reinforced their interest in being a part of the fourth estate.

"It's a reminder of the democratic importance of free… journalism. Not something that is funded and sieved through the government."

When asked about the accusations of censorship, Minister for Youth James Meager called it a bit of a misunderstanding, adding that "all of the Youth MPs and the Youth Press Gallery were entitled to say what they felt like they needed to say. Part of our role and part of the Ministry's role in running this programme is to make sure that all the participants are safe in what they do and say. And look, they don't have the protections in the same way that politicians do in terms of privilege and in terms of protection from legal action. So just trying to support them and guide them and provide recommendations about what they might want to do, to amend their speeches here and there, but ultimately it's up to them as to what they say."

Youth MPs also had a go at scrutinising the government through a mock Question Time session, which Meager was involved in. Youth MPs weren't afraid to express dissatisfaction if they thought an answer wasn't up to scratch.

While there was probably just as much back and forth shouting in the chamber as there is in Parliament proper, several of the MPs I talked to noted the collegiality of their colleagues, telling me that arguments were almost always made in good spirit.

Youth MP for Catherine Wedd, Chris Proctor, said "the biggest thing I learnt is that politics isn't always like what you see in the media. I feel like sitting in the house. We felt a lot more unified than what it could look like from the outside. I think everyone's in there for the right reasons, representing their community."

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