South Australian students participating in a study-in at Parliament house when we went down to chat with them on Wednesday 15 Nov 2023 about their action. Pictured (in no particular order): Harper, Anjali, Katherine, Ula, Lilith, Cyrus, Tilly and Bella.
If you walked by Parliament House toward the end of last year during the week of November 13 – 17, you would’ve seen a group of high school students with a somewhat unusual study setup.
While their peers across the state and country alike are working from classrooms, libraries and loungeroom floors these students are out in the sun in an attempt to progress their academic futures and climate action at a state and federal level.
The week-long study-in, coordinated by the SA Youth Climate Alliance (previously Adelaide School Strike for Climate) culminates in a submission wring session for The Climate Change Amendment (Duty of Care and Intergenerational Climate Equity) Bill 2023 on the Friday, coinciding with around 400 other protests and actions across the country.
Harper Forsythe and Anjali Beames are oranisers behind this action, striking here all week because right now, they’re more stressed about the climate than their ATARS.
“We’re studying for a future that we won’t have without real action on climate change,” Anjali said.
The demonstration is a kind of tongue in cheek response to the way Australian politicians have historically responded to student protests, especially for climate action.
“Every time we strike or there is a demonstration of young people, politicians often say, ‘oh, go back to school,’ ‘students belong in school,’ regardless of their political affiliations - we're demonstrating because it is a dual anxiety both the climate and education… the reality is that these things are occurring side-by-side for us,” explained Harper.
This is an intensive week, with striking students occupying the steps of Parliament House from 9 am – 5 pm Monday – Friday, but this disruption to their own schooling is not only to demonstrate that they care about the issue, but that climate anxiety is already doing just that.
“We have to juggle these responsibilities of planning for our future, despite the concerns that we have that it might not happen, and the things that we're studying for, the jobs that we're dreaming of [are] going to be negatively affected and quite severely impacted by climate change and the associated natural disasters and consequences of the changing climate that the government's not doing enough to mitigate,” Anjali said.
Particularly once you factor in the schedules, hours and commitments of both parliamentarians and students, it’s clear that the structures in place present more barriers to young people than other members of the community and groups.
“Setting up meetings is near impossible when you're juggling school extracurriculars and then politicians say, ‘hey, I'll be free in six months, maybe for two minutes,’” said Harper.
So they’re calling on politicians to make time for them instead, but the reception to their action has left something to be desired from their representatives.
To put it bluntly, it has been largely photo-op centric.
“We get a lot of particularly anyone in government, not the opposition at any given time (regardless of party), who’ll come out and take a photo and say, ‘hi, good on you for coming out here,’ and pat us on the back.”
While that is the extent of those interactions, they’re still the more positive ones.
“A lot of politicians avoid us. You could really tell on the first day of sitting when they didn't know we were here they were walking past, and then taking the side and back entrances. So it's either a photo op outright avoidance, or federally we see a lot of denigration of students protesting.”
So this didn’t come as a surprise to the strikers.
“I feel as though politicians definitely disregard the opinions and thoughts of young people, I'd go so far as to say there is a quite hostility to it.”
“I have definitely done more research on certain issues than many politicians I've spoken to, and yet they really struggle to believe that I have any expertise in any area.”
“Obviously it is a lot of ageism, and I would say that because a lot of youth movements are led by young women, queer and gender diverse people and people of colour… that is part of it. I think a lot of marginalised voices get lost.”
Harper has even experienced politicians expressing to them that their political interests, and that of other young people, are centered around legalising vapes – a youth led movement we’re unaware of.
But this action is about demonstrating how much they care not only to those who work inside the walls of Parliament, but those going past.
“On a small scale what we're doing is not just behind closed doors, it's something public that members of the community can see that we're doing and that we care about, so it's almost two way. It’s trying to draw attention to us from politicians, but also from members of the public,” Anjali explains.
This is only made more important by the way politicians are dismissive of young people.
“From one meeting, they're not going to launch this new policy, they're not going to change anything. But continual pressure from the public, that's the biggest thing that's going to change their minds.”
“As young people, what legitimacy do we have? What credibility do we necessarily have as being experts in what we're telling them? We want people who are experts, and we want people in those positions, the people who are lobbyists and that sort of thing to be advocating for us on our behalf, not making us do the labour of meeting with people during school days and inconvenient times for us.”
But of course, this isn’t without its own challenges. With so many avenues of climate advocacy, like emissions, climate change, biodiversity and deforestation (to name a few), it can be difficult to convey progress.
“It's a lot easier to resonate with a specific issue or a specific place that needs to be saved or something where you can really quantify the win.”
Instead, they characterise their movement as an ongoing criticism of the way that governments in Australia consider young people and their futures.
And because young people are systemically excluded from established processes, central to these movements is an understanding that we can’t all do everything – but we can all do something to create collective pressure.
“Change doesn't just come from the top down, it comes from the bottom up. By engaging in multiple forms of advocacy, change-making looks different for everyone.”
“No one way works better than another, but different methods achieve different things and so what we're doing today and this week is achieving something different than those meetings directly with MP's and that sort of thing”
The message they want to leave you with? There is always something, and there’s no time to waste.
“Find out what works for you – but do something. That's what we're asking. If you're unable to join us at the study-in or similar protests, that doesn't mean that you have no way to make change, but you'll be the one who has to decide what works for you.”
“Don't let one method that doesn't work completely put you off from engaging in change making and engaging in politics, because there is something for you, but you have to put in the time and the effort to find out what that is and to see it through.”
“Every time a politician tells you to wait until we get into Parliament, we need to think about who the young parliamentarians are. Max Chandler is far older than me and he is the young MP, and people mock him for not wearing a tie… young people in parliament are disrespected for their youth,” said Harper.
“We don't have the time to waste, in my lifetime Kiribati and Tuvalu Pacific Island Nations are going underwater and Darwin won't be livable because it will be too hot. We are seeing in real time that by the time I am 50, the planet will be completely different than when I was born in 2005.
“So don't wait until you're in Parliament for them to disrespect you in a suit and tie. Let them disrespect you now and wait until they will finally listen to us.”
We’d like to thank all those involved for taking the time to speak to us, and especially to Harper and Anjali for sitting down with us during their action. You can find the SA Youth Climate Alliance on Instagram @sayouthclimatealliance for a full recap - the Minister for the Environment, Minister for Energy, and Leader of the Opposition (amongst others) did stop and speak to them throughout the week, and whilst not all conversations were receptive, the study in was a pretty successful tactic!
