As a gay Aboriginal woman, becoming involved in politics was never a choice, 16-year-old Aretha Stewart-Brown told the ABC’s Q&A program on Monday.
“Being part of certain minority groups you don’t get a choice of going into politics, you’re kind of born into it,” said the Gumbaynggirr woman, who was chosen as Australia’s first female Indigenous prime minister at the National Youth Indigenous Parliament last month.
“You don’t have a choice at all. You don’t get a choice. It’s kind of a privilege to want to be involved in politics. Someone who is Indigenous has for so long kind of been, I guess, controlled by it.”
Very true! As a minority, you don't have the privilege of choosing to be politically engaged - it's imposed on you #QandA
— Mariam Veiszadeh (@MariamVeiszadeh) July 24, 2017
Brown was one of four high school students on the Q&A panel on Monday night. The Williamstown high student joined Parade College student Pinidu Chandrasekera, an aspiring journalist from Melbourne; Kaniva college student Jock Maddern, representing a small Victorian farming community of 1,000 people; and MacRobertson girls’ high school student Jacinta Speer, an alumni of the Yale University Young Global Scholars program and past intern for Labor MPs Bill Shorten and Anna Burke.
All four had won their place in a video audition against 250 other applicants, Jones said, to take part in the program’s first high school special.
Fantastic #qanda. The youth represent our future, it's time their voices were heard #mentalhealth #gaymarriage
— Charlotte Gregory (@MarzelSunrise) July 24, 2017
All the audience members were high school students, many decked out in their uniforms at 9.35pm in order to appear on live television. Their questions ranged from the ability of old white guys Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn to secure the youth vote, to intergenerational poverty, the government’s oft-criticised PaTH program, terrorism, the proposed Adani coalmine, suicide and equal rights.
Also on the panel, though without the rigorous audition process, were the environment and energy minister, Josh Frydenberg, and the shadow health minister, Catherine King.
The often unfair linking of government, identity and politics was a common theme.
In an echo of the vilification and eventual emigration of Yassmin Abdel-Magied, Sondus Sammak, a young Muslim woman in a white hijab, asked if she and other muslims would be more monitored and “viewed through the prism of terrorism” if they posted political opinions on social media.
Will ASIO criminalise me if I post something political on social media? Our #QandA panel responds pic.twitter.com/gnb4dFG0QZ
— ABC Q&A (@QandA) July 24, 2017
“Do I have freedom of speech like anyone else?” she asked.
#QandA When a young Muslim woman is chased out of the country for speaking up it is a true concern
— Kristin Dawson (@OpKrismarg) July 24, 2017
Frydenberg’s assurance that social media and other activity would only be monitored with a warrant under the new super-ministry of home affairs, and comments about the Muslim community being a partner in national security, did not change the reality of life as a Muslim person in Australia, Sammak said.
“I feel like the government puts all of these measures to protects us but at the same time it is marginalising the Muslim community and we can feel that in everywhere that we go,” she said. “Why do I on the street have to feel like I’m a subject for Islamophobia, even though my government is telling me I’m safe to go out? Just because I’m wearing my headscarf, I can easily be targeted.
“I have the right to feel as safe as everyone else in this country, and I ... I don’t feel as safe as everyone else in this country.”
Is this episode of #qanda purely to make us all feel guilty about the self absorbed shits we were at age 16
— Lane Sainty (@lanesainty) July 24, 2017
Jasmine Kinderis, a student from regional Victoria, told the panel she was also made to feel unsafe because of a prejudice she felt was reinforced by government policy: the insistence that marriage equality could only be achieved through a plebiscite.
It was not an abstract question, Kinderis said. Being “openly abused for holding hands” would increase, she suggested.
The young panel was united in its support for marriage equality but divided in its approach: Chandrasekera and Maddern supported a plebiscite on marriage equality, while Speer and Stewart-Brown said it would be damaging to LGBTIQ people, particularly LGBTIQ young people.
I'm finding this school student #QandA far more enlightening than with the usual gibberers
— BUZZ ROTHFIELD (@BuzzRothfield) July 24, 2017
“You do everything as you can to be a good person, it shouldn’t matter who you love,” Maddern said, broadening from his small-government stance, which in previous responses had made him appear conservative enough to attract the attention of Cory Bernardi. “No one should be able to say you cannot marry [the person you love],” he said. “For someone else to say that’s not acceptable is criminally unfair, really.”
So much common sense by Jock Maddern from Kaniva on @QandA that it gives hope for the future. I hope he joins @AuConservatives #QandA
— Cory Bernardi (@corybernardi) July 24, 2017
Stewart-Brown said she was “left kind of broken” at the fact that she could not ever plan to get married in Australia, while her straight peers could.
King agreed, and dismissed Frydenberg’s comment that the Coalition would stand by its policy of only supporting marriage equality through a plebiscite, not a free vote in parliament.
“You have changed policies all the time, I don’t know why you won’t change your policy on this,” she said. “We should just get this done.”
Our fantastic #QandA panel tonight. We look forward to doing this again soon https://t.co/UfejF8zbl9 pic.twitter.com/5Vcju0bK7o
— ABC Q&A (@QandA) July 24, 2017
