Australian Democrats: Aaron Johnson

There is no other Australian political party that can come close to matching the Australian Democrats when it comes to youth issues. No other party has a track record that can match ours when it comes to directly engaging young Australians in our political process.

Take for example Natasha Stott-Despoja, at 26 years old, the youngest woman ever elected to the Senate and Roslyn Dundas, at 23, was the youngest woman elected to an Australian parliament ever.

This is a 30 year old tradition that the Australian Democrats continue to this day. With around 25% of our candidates contesting this federal election being 18 to 30 years old, we are the only party that has a true proportional representation of young people. We even have a handful of candidates who are contesting House of Representative seats, yet have never voted in a federal election before because this is the first time they are eligible to vote. Even myself at 26, I am much younger than my counterparts contesting the seat of Newcastle.

We are the only party that conducts an annual youth poll on a range of diverse issues and not as just some token act to try and impress like the other parties do. Our youth poll is distributed to schools, TAFE's, youth groups, universities, welfare and community organisations where our research is transformed into results at a grass roots level.

To see more of what the Young Australian Democrats are doing, why not check us out at: www.yads.org.au

Cheers mate,

Aaron Johnson
Australian Democrats candidate for Newcastle.

The above statement was provided to the Newcastle Youth Council by the Australian Democrats