Open Government Partnership New Zealand National Action Plan 2018-2020
Progress report for: 1 October to 31 December 2019
Commitment 2: Youth Parliament
Lead agency: Ministry of Youth Development
Objective: To improve understanding among young people of how Parliament works and to highlight topics that matter to young people the Ministry of Youth Development (MYD) will work with the Office of the Speaker of the New Zealand House of Representatives to deliver an enhanced Youth Parliament 2019.
Ambition: Through delivering the six-month Youth Parliament 2019 programme, MYD aims to fulfil the five Youth Parliament objectives:
- replicate the Parliamentary process
- involve as many young people as possible (before and after the event)
- maximise the educational opportunities of the event
- enhance Parliamentary public relations
- make known the views expressed to appropriate policy agencies.
To allow young people the opportunity to shape what is discussed at the two-day event the young people selected to be Youth MPs will submit potential topics for Youth Parliament select committee hearings, and potential topics for a mock bill.
OGP values: Public Participation, Technology and Innovation
Milestones
Milestone 1
Widely promote the opportunity to submit to the ten planned Youth Parliament select committee hearings ahead of the July 2019 Youth Parliament event to a diverse range of young people.
Start/End dates: April 2019 – June 2019
Progress: Completed
Milestone 2
Explore (with the Ministry of Education) how footage of Youth MPs speaking in the debating chamber of the New Zealand House of Representatives could be utilised as part of a civics or citizenship educational resource for schools.
Start/End dates: October 2018-June 2020
Progress: Completed
Milestone 3
With the Office of the Clerk of the House of Representatives maximise opportunities to profile Youth Parliament via social media channels, including promoting:
- the Youth MP and Youth Press Gallery selection period
- the finalising of the select committee and mock bill topics (planned to be finalised by April 2019)
- the work of Youth MPs in their communities during their tenure
- activities occurring during the two-day Youth Parliament event
Start/End dates: October 2018-August 2019
Progress: Completed
Milestone 4
Circulate Youth Parliament select committee reports to policy agencies relevant to the topics discussed and publish them on the MYD website as soon as they are available after the Youth Parliament event.
Start/End dates: July 2019-October 2019
Progress: Completed
What we have been doing
- Following the delivery of the six-month Youth Parliament programme from 1 March to 31 August 2019, we published a summary A3 document on our website on 16 October 2019 providing information about the programme, including participant feedback and some key achievements.
- On 5 November 2019 we formally submitted to the Civics or Citizenship strand of the Ministry of Education’s School Leaver’s Toolkit online resource:
- the link to the New Zealand Youth Parliament youtube channel, which contains approximately 150 videos of Youth Parliament 2019 activities that occurred in the debating chamber at Parliament, including Youth MPs debating, asking questions of Ministers, and presenting their final select committee reports
- links to the ten Youth Parliament 2019 select committee reports, detailing findings and recommendations from the inquiry each committee carried out during the Youth Parliament 2019 two-day event at Parliament.
- The 5 November 2019 submissions to the School Leaver’s Toolkit online resource concluded our exploration with the Ministry of Education of how footage of Youth MPs speaking in the debating chamber of the New Zealand House of Representatives could be utilised as part of a civics or citizenship educational resource for schools,
- The Office of the Clerk has continued to work with Parliamentary select committee Chairs to arrange times (where committee agendas allow) for Youth MPs to report back to the Parliamentary select committee relevant to their Youth Parliament select committee inquiry:
- On 16 October 2019, Ministry of Youth Development, Ministry of Health, and Office of the Clerk officials supported the final Youth Parliament 2019 select committee report back , to the Parliamentary Health select committee on the Youth Parliament inquiry titled what can we do to lower the rate of suicide in New Zealand
- The report back included one Youth MP presenting in the select committee room, and two further Youth MPs presenting via live video link
- The report back was live streamed on the Parliamentary Health select committee’s facebook page.
How we are including diverse voices
- Footage from the live broadcast, cut up into individual speeches and questions continues to be publicly available online, enabling the diverse voices of Youth Parliament 2019’s 120 Youth MPs (who identified with 20 different ethnicities) to be shared and further utilised.
- The 149 videos from Youth Parliament 2019’s live broadcast uploaded to the NZ Youth Parliament youtube channel have been viewed a combined total of 47,300 times, with 3,800 viewings occurring since 1 October 2019.
How we are keeping diverse communities informed
- On 15 October 2019 we publicly released and distributed to our stakeholders the third and final Youth Parliament electronic newsletter, including 17 articles written entirely by Youth Press Gallery members about the 16 and 17 July Youth Parliament 2019 event at Parliament, and covering Youth MPs’ projects and activities. The e-newsletter was distributed to the following stakeholders:
- Aotearoa New Zealand Federation of Social Studies Teachers
- Ara Taiohi and other local youth sector networks such as the Canterbury Youth Workers Collective
- Electoral Commission
- Local government organisations
- Ministry for Pacific Peoples
- Ministry for Women
- Ministry of Education
- Ministry of Social Development
- National Association of Media Educators
- New Zealand Business and Parliament Trust
- Office for Disability Issues
- Office of Ethnic Affairs
- Office of the Children’s Commissioner
- Office of the Clerk
- Office of the Speaker
- Oranga Tamariki
- Te Puni Kokiri.
- On 11 November 2019 we distributed to the above stakeholders a link to the Youth Parliament 2019 summary A3 document, which includes information on Youth Parliament, provides participant feedback, and highlights some key achievements.
What's next?
- We will continue to support the Ministry of Education (MoE) work to develop civics or citizenship educational resource for schools as part of the School Leaver’s Toolkit. This includes continuing to participate in MoE’s cross-agency civics working group.
- We are working with the Office of the Clerk to embed lessons learnt from the planning and delivery of the Youth Parliament 2019 programme ahead of the next Youth Parliament, expected to be delivered in 2022.
Links – Evidence of progress and milestones achieved
- The Youth Parliament Summary A3 document is available on the Ministry of Youth Development’s website.
- All footage of Youth Parliament 2019 activities that occurred in the debating chamber is available on the Youth Parliament youtube channel.
- The ten Youth Parliament 2019 select committee reports are available on the Parliament website.
- The live stream of the report back to the Parliamentary Health select committee on the Youth Parliament 2019 inquiry titled what can we do to lower the rate of suicide in New Zealand can be viewed on the Parliamentary Health select committee’s facebook page.
- The October 2019 Youth Parliament electronic newsletter is available online here.