Open Government Partnership New Zealand National Action Plan 2018-2020
Progress report for: 1 January 2019 – 30 April 2019
Commitment 2 progress report: January to April 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-June2019
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: Underway
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: July 2019-October 2019
Progress: Underway
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: N/A (Scheduled to start in mid-July 2019)
What we have been doing
- All Aotearoa New Zealand based Youth Parliament 2019 participants, including 119 Youth Members of Parliament (Youth MPs) and 20 Youth Press Gallery (YPG) members, participated in one of nine regional training sessions between 26 February and 14 March 2019. The training sessions included an introduction to the six-month Youth Parliament programme, an introduction to Parliament and how it works, and skill based training including project management, public speaking and surveying (for Youth MPs), and reporting and journalism skills (for YPG members).
- The Speaker of the New Zealand House of Representatives’ (the Speaker) Youth MP, who is based in the United Arab Emirates, is receiving customised training and support for his role through the Speaker’s office.
- The six-month Youth Parliament 2019 programme and biographies on all 140 participants were publicly launched on 1 March through a media release from the Minister for Youth titled Youth Parliament 2019 Ready to Launch.
- Following the 1 March 2019 launch of the six-month Youth Parliament 2019 programme we refreshed the Youth Parliament twitter account for 2019, with an updated handle (@NZYP19) and hashtag (#NZYouthParliament), and began tweeting on 6 March 2019.
- Following on from the project management training provided at the regional training sessions, where requested by Youth MPs we have been supporting them to initiate and progress projects on topics they are passionate about.
How we are including diverse voices
- For the first time in the history of Aotearoa New Zealand’s Youth Parliament, the ten Youth Parliament select committee (committee) topics to be discussed at the twoday event in July 2019 were submitted and selected by Youth MPs through an online ranking process.
- We publicly released the ten committee topics and carried out an online public submission process on them during April 2019, receiving a total of 48 submissions, over double the amount of submissions that were received for Youth Parliament 2016 (a total of 20 were received in 2016).
- We promoted the online public submission process on the Ministry of Youth Development (MYD) Facebook page and the Youth Parliament 2019 twitter account. We partnered with the Office of the Clerk to have our posts shared and the public submission process promoted on New Zealand Parliament’s Facebook, twitter and Instagram accounts. The total reach (Facebook and Instagram) and impressions (twitter) for posts promoting the public submission process was 88,032.
- The Youth Parliament 2019 mock bill topic draw was live broadcast on New Zealand Parliament’s Instagram account at 6:00pm on 2 April 2019, with the Sustainable Energy Bill drawn from options supplied by Youth MPs.
How we are keeping diverse communities informed
- We circulated information on the public submission process (and links to relevant social media posts) to 22 stakeholder organisations and networks, including population focussed agencies such as Te Puni Kōkiri, Ministry for Pacific Peoples, Office for Ethnic Communities, Office of Disability issues, youth sector networks such as Ara Taiohi and the Canterbury Youth Workers Collective, and other stakeholders such as local government youth advisors and the Ministry of Education.
What's next?
- Youth MPs and YPG members (participants) will receive the submissions on the select committee topic they are have been allocated to (allocations are made based on participants’ preferences) by 31 May 2019.
- Online training will be made available to participants by 31 May 2019, supporting Youth MPs to prepare for the two-day Youth Parliament 2019 event (the event) programme.
- We will release the first Youth Parliament electronic newsletter by 31 May 2019, providing information on selected Youth MP activities since 1 March 2019. All newsletter content and stories will be written by Youth Press Gallery members.
- Participants will receive the Youth Parliament 2019 mock bill and a notes and context document by mid-June 2019, supporting them to prepare for the legislative debate at the event.
Links – Evidence of progress and milestones achieved
- Minister for Youth’s 1 March 2019 media release: Youth Parliament 2019 Ready to Launch.