Jananie Janarthana says Australia needs to have a conversation about who gets elected to political office.
Key points:
- The NSW local elections will be held on December 4
- Young Australians are the most under-represented in local government
- Candidates the ABC spoke to were concerned about climate action, sustainability, affordable housing and civic engagement
That's one of the reasons the 27-year-old is running in the New South Wales local elections next weekend for a seat in the City of Ryde.
"This area means so much to me and I've been such a beneficiary of it, and I want to pay that forward for future generations," Ms Janarthana said.
"My grandparents migrated from Sri Lanka, first to England but then to Australia, and they actually moved to Eastwood."
She said the major parties — including her own party, Labor — have a long way to go with representation.
"We are falling behind in so many ways at a basic level — the Labor Party doesn't gather any data on our members, on how they identify culturally, and you can't do anything like quotas without data."
If elected, Ms Janarthana wants to collaborate with state and federal governments to develop affordable social housing in Ryde Council and work with students and young people to improve civic education.
Ms Janarthana, currently a senior project officer at the Sydney Policy Lab, thinks a lot can be achieved on big issues like climate change at the local level — for example by building electric car stations to encourage uptake.
"I do think there's an importance of having people who are interested in big macro change at a local governance level."
Ms Janarthana is being supported by Run For It, a volunteer grassroots organisation trying to change the political landscape by supporting and training young, diverse candidates.
Edward Krutsch, Run For It's 21-year-old national director, said he started the organisation because politicians were not acting on issues young people were speaking about.
For Run For It to support a candidate, they need to align with the organisation's mission to champion causes young people care about.
"We have three core policy-style values: climate justice, economic justice and social justice," Mr Krutsch said.
Run For It is supporting 18 candidates during this year's election across several parties including Labor, the Greens, Animal Justice Party and Clover Moore's Independent Team.
Young, diverse people most politically engaged
Mr Krutsch said candidates his organisation supported in the Victorian local election last year had often been dissuaded from running for office.
"We had candidates who had people say things like they were too young and they needed to wait their turn," he said.
Research released by the Sydney Policy Lab in September showed younger people who grew up with a first language other than English were the most civically engaged of any demographic.
But this engagement does not translate to getting elected.
Research by the New South Wales government found people aged between 18 and 30 are the most under-represented in local government, making up 16 per cent of the population but only 4 per cent of councillors.
Furthermore, 27 per cent of households speak a language other than English, but only 8 per cent of councillors have a first language other than English.
Mr Krutsch has tracked diversity in politics, too, and said the current statistics were a big issue.
"There are quite a number of councils that are entirely just older white men," he said.
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'There's no young women'
Karen Wright, a 28-year-old single mother with two kids, is running as an independent in the Bega Valley to pave the way for people like her in the future.
"When I look at the current makeup of councillors, there's no young women, there's no people of colour," the Indian-Australian woman said.
Being a young woman of colour in a "largely rural white community", Ms Wright hopes to support and advocate for other minorities like refugees, Indigenous people and senior women.
But getting elected as an independent is difficult.
Ms Wright has funded her own campaign and does not have a large volunteer base, although there are advantages to not being associated with a political party.
"Lots of people have this distrust towards parties and politicians and running as an independent with fresh ideas has actually been more positive than negative," she said.
If elected, the community sector worker hopes to create a youth council in the Bega Valley.
Ms Wright said she wants to support young people in thinking about how they can create change, and give them a platform for their ideas.
"There's that small handful of young people who are very successful at school and really engaged in their communities, but there's a whole bunch of young people that are completely disengaged because they're not being heard," she said.
Local council isn't about an impressive CV
Deyi Wu, president of the NSW Young Liberals, said there "definitely" needed to be more diversity in local councils, but there were some cultural barriers.
"Often young people are written off too quickly, or they write themselves off … but council isn't necessarily about how good your CV is, it's about wanting to give back to your local community and understanding the issues."
"As someone who is from an Asian background, politics is known for being quite unstable," she said, adding families like hers might encourage their children to pursue "safe" careers as doctors, lawyers or accountants.
Haris Strangas, a young Australian of Greek heritage, is running for a seat in Sutherland Shire for the Liberals.
"I want to give back to the community that has given my family and I so much. I am passionate about supporting small businesses through the reduction of red tape," he said.
He said his running mate Hassan Awada immigrated from Lebanon in his 20s, and that young people brought a "youthful exuberance and new ideas to the table".
"In recent years, I have personally seen an increase in candidates from diverse backgrounds representing the Liberal Party. I hope to see this trend continued," Mr Strangas said.
Ms Wu said she hoped the upcoming election would be a way to see how many of their candidates were women, young or culturally diverse, and from there to establish a baseline and set targets.
"I think there definitely should be targets, especially when they're recognised at a whole-party level, it is more likely to be achieved."
'Young people should be out voting'
HY William Chan, an architect running in the City of Sydney with the Clover Moore Independent Team, has never thought about running for federal or state government.
"I think at local government, that's where you can have direct action, but also direct engagement," he said.
Mr Chan said that he was representative of the city's diverse population as a young, first-generation migrant.
"The City of Sydney has 50 per cent of the entire LGA [local government area] aged between 18 and 34," he said.
"Fifty per cent of the community of the City of Sydney were born overseas, and I was also born overseas in Hong Kong."
With a background in urban planning, Mr Chan is passionate about creating sustainable cities — he wants to implement water recycling and air monitoring systems to prepare the city for the impacts of climate change.
He also hopes to address homelessness and create affordable social housing which offers the community more than just four walls and a roof.
"Having access to green spaces actually becomes a critical part of our mental wellbeing," Mr Chan said.
Another priority is to collaborate with young people and have conversations about creating a city that serves both current and future generations.
"Young people should be out voting, but we should be voting together as a community because it's our collective future."
Additional reporting by Erin Handley
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