Youth Parliament provides a socially acceptable setting for rangatahi to yell at a room full of important people. The biggest news story to come from Youth Parliament were the accusations of censoring the youth voice, levied against the Ministry of Youth Development (MYD). Critic Te Ārohi had a fly on the wall in the Youth Press Gallery – here’s the tea, straight from Wellington. Parliament gossip hits just as good as the campus rumour mill, turns out.
Sick of screaming her political takes into the void of social media, Otago Uni second-year Law and Politics student Jomana Moharram took her ideas to Youth Parliament. The triennial event hosted by MYD allows future leaders to strut the halls of the Beehive, simulating the experience of an MP or journo. Each MP selects a politically driven rangatahi to take their seat in the House of Representatives over the course of the event. Change-makers and overachievers alike gathered for the two day event over the recent semester break in Pōneke.
Ōtepoti-based Greens MP Francisco Hernandez chose Jomana to represent him at Youth Parliament. In her short time at the Uni, Jomana founded Amnesty Youth Otago (where she remains co-president), and is the secretary for both POLSA and Campus Greens. Jomana’a goal is to make politics more accessible to university students. She mocks students who say “I don’t do politics,” while emphasizing the point, “Baby, politics is doing you. Politics is screwing you actively every single day of the week”.
Civics education was a priority for Jomana who addressed the topic in her three-minute general debate speech in the chambers of Parliament. Civics education teaches people how the Government works, what their rights and responsibilities are, and how to actively participate in a democratic society. She says in her speech that New Zealand's unfair system “deprives people of their participation in democracy,” making it harder for the general public to hold the Government to account.
Jomana understands that students living week-to-week off StudyLink don’t have time to keep up to date with Parliament TV. These expectations aren’t fair on this generation of students “because they're obviously just trying to get by.” Many students believe that living in a shitty, mouldy student flat is a “rite of passage” according to Jomana. She believes that civics education in schools will make it easier for students to challenge these assumptions.
What created the biggest buzz within the Beehive was debate over censorship. Youth MP speeches had to be submitted ahead of time to MYD, but many participants ready to pop off in the debating chamber were met with an email with the subject heading: ‘General Debate Speech feedback – changes required’.
Big-kid politicians are protected by ‘Parliamentary Privilege’, the concept that you can’t get in legal trouble for pissing anything or anyone off in Parliament. MYD claims that their suggested edits were in the interest of preserving the apolitical nature of the event and protecting Youth MPs who do not have parliamentary privilege.
The suggested changes included remaining politically neutral, removing naming and shaming (especially of political parties) and making sure no speeches breached defamation, copyright, privacy, or contempt of court laws. Changes weren’t mandatory, however national news headlines were filled with groups of Youth MPs claiming censorship, while other peers pleaded this was not the case.
If you challenged the changes, MYD would respond making it clear that “it is your choice how you use that feedback”. Despite this, Jomana doesn’t believe that the “threat" of legal trouble is a realistic one. “You're not gonna get sued for defamation unless you say something like, ‘[Minister for Youth] James Meager called me a terrorist monkey, and then he kicked my cat’.” Let’s assume that last bit was sarcasm.
Reflecting on the event, Francisco Hernandez believes MYD acted in a manner of “overcaution, leading to inadvertent censorship”. In a press conference, Labour MP Greg O’Connor likens the issue of censorship to “pushing down on a custard square. It will just pop out the sides.”
When it came time for Jomana’s speech, she ignored most of the feedback. Without fear she proudly criticized the coalition. Reflecting on the experience she said “I enjoyed it a lot, actually.” Critic Te Ārohi can safely report that Jomana is seemingly safe from any threats of trouble from the Government after her speech.