Year 11 Student, Sydney Boys’ High School, New South Wales

The Canberra story began during the middle of third term. A teacher brought me an application form to participate in Every Voice Counts! However, as I glanced at my calendar, I realised that there was one obstacle stopping me from signing up: my HSC Geography examination, which was booked in for Tuesday, 18 October, a week after the forum was due to be held. However, my determination to be part of it was enough to convince my parents. Even if I was allowed to go, what were the odds that I would be selected anyway?

However, through my teacher’s support and another teacher’s help in composing the statement on social justice I sent the forms in.

On Monday, after my biology exam, my teacher called me to her room and announced the news. I was just stoked. Fortunately I was able to finish most of the study for my exams and organise everything in time for the flight on Tuesday, 11 October.

The issue for this year’s forum was entitled ‘Access to clean water: a fundamental human right’. This is an issue that affects Australians all over the country, and would prove to be a politically complex issue when examined on a global basis.

On the first day we went to Parliament House, where we met the then Minister for Education, Science and Training, the Hon. Dr Brendan Nelson, MP. We also met a representative from the Parliament House Education Office. He gave us an interesting insight into the way Parliament operated and what everything symbolised, from the green carpet to the oak tree leaves. We also got an experience of the high-security measures placed at Parliament House as we weren’t allowed to take our cameras or mobile phones into either the Senate or the House of Representatives. We listened to both of those Houses at work but, to our dismay, it was explained that the politicians rarely sat all at once unless it was a house vote. When that happened, a bell would ring inside the compound and red lights would flash on all the clocks in every room, in order to alert the Members to the Division.

After that it was time to meet the Minister and to formally open the forum. He was very pleased to see us, and he provided us with a very interesting insight into how he views the world. He was very knowledgeable from what he said and seemed to really admire history, as he continually referred to quotes from Socrates and Mahatma Ghandi. After that it was time for questions. I was at first nervous at asking questions as it was so directly at the Minister. And I was only going to ever ask him questions about what I felt passionate about, which, coincidentally, happened to be a very controversial issue. Anyhow, students asked questions ranging from Volunteer Student Unionism and tolerance towards the Muslim community, to the storing of nuclear waste and the new Tasmanian L-study programs. He even praised our school after I told him that I was from Sydney Boys’ High School. What an honour!

After that we had our photos taken with the Minister, as well as with our local Members. I was fortunate enough to meet my local Member, the Member for Banks, who was a really nice person. We also witnessed a press conference where the Prime Minister, John Howard, stood on a pedestal to address the media.

Later, in a mock Senate inquiry, I got to be a Senator, along with six other students. Here we listened to different groups of students who represented various bodies of people concerned about water use. It was a challenging, but interesting exercise to understand how Senate inquiries function in real life.

After that we went to the Parliament Shop to buy some souvenirs. We hopped onto the bus and arrived just in time to get changed for dinner. Dinner was good but after that we had two hours of fun time where we were involved in some theatre sport games conducted by a man who participated in Australia’s first ever Theatre Sports television show. It was loads of fun and provided an opportunity to become better acquainted with everyone.

On the second day we discussed the issue of water as a fundamental human right. We took the bus to Old Parliament House, where we listened to three talks by people from different places around the country as they described their perspectives on the issue. First was an Aboriginal man from the Kimberley Region, whose community was facing a great water crisis because the Western Australian Government was planning to pump water from their area to Perth. The next speaker was a man who worked in the Murray-Darling, who spoke passionately about ways in which water can be saved. He also outlined his reservation about Australian rice growers producing rice with greater input costs than their Asian competitors, thus exploiting the limited water supply.

Following that we got into groups to write up reports that we would send to the Department of Education, Science and Training. We brainstormed ideas for an hour before typing them up. Our head supervisor then collated them and printed them off later that day. This was a challenging and interesting exercise that aimed to prove that every voice does count because students from all over the country were able to project their views.

That afternoon, we went to the Australian Museum, which was very interesting. The museum is unique in that it draws on the three parallel themes of Land, People and Nation. After visiting several exhibitions, we left to visit ScreenSound Australia, where audio and video archives from the first ever Australian feature film (a silent film called Ned Kelly) to recent shows such as Home and Away and Neighbours (our two best ongoing dramas) are housed.

It was a quick walk back to the hotel to get changed for pizza night. We stayed up a little late that night watching movies and just plain mingling as that was to be out last night in Canberra.

On our final day, we headed back once more to Old Parliament House, to work on our reports on the social issues that we were interested in. I wandered around, working on different issues, ranging from multiculturalism and cultural acceptance, to the Iraq War, parents giving more attention to their children, and the storing of nuclear waste in the Northern Territory.

We typed up our reports, and after a quick lunch, there was an opportunity to gather each other’s email addresses, thank the facilitators and submit our reports.

At about 2:30pm we eventually said our goodbyes and the Northern Territory and New South Wales people (there were six of us) left for Canberra airport.

Being a part of Every Voice Counts! was a great experience which I really will cherish for many years to come. I am very grateful to my teachers for helping me to compose the application and for providing me with this unique opportunity.

On a final note I feel that students at my school should get more involved in these sorts of activities and represent their school at a national level. There are various programs, (which I first learned about there) including the Simpson Prize (a trip to a WWI site) and the Youth Parliament, which run every year. Closer to home, there’s a new social justice group being formed under Amnesty International by some students in Year 11 that students in all grades should get involved with. I feel that many students at my school are apathetic in regards to various social issues that confront them, and don’t often understand the problems that are faced by people within Sydney let alone the world. To become better all round citizens with a global awareness, one must first expand one’s own experiences of the world and its diversity.