Interview with Katie Acheson
For Katie Acheson, a healthy, vibrant democracy doesn’t start with politicians or policies or even political institutions.
By Andrew Koubaridis
It starts with people – specifically, young people.
Katie has been examining youth inclusion as part of the Churchill Scholarship she was awarded in 2023. That journey took her to the United Kingdom, Europe and Canada seeking out what Australia can learn from other countries about better ways of including young people in decision-making.
Her report, Power and Potential: A Global Blueprint for Youth-Led Decision-Making, found systems need to be transformed so young people are at the heart of shaping their own futures and not just consulted with.
“Young people are arguably the experts in the issues that are affecting young people, they just understand what's going on for them. They're the only ones who can really help explain what it's like to be a young person at this time in history,” Katie said.
Despite Australia having a strong democratic system, increasing numbers of young people are feeling disillusioned and disengaged. This worries Katie.
“If we have a generation growing up thinking that the government isn't doing a good job and isn't invested in the interests of the people, then they have no buy-in to that system. And for a country to succeed, you need to have citizens who vote, who want to participate, who believe and will follow the rules, who'll pay the taxes, and that, particularly for Australia, is very important.”
With a declining birth rate and ageing population, Australia’s economic future relies on today’s young people being energised and engaged.
“We need young people who feel part of our country, to be actively engaged in gainful employment and be able to pay their taxes, so that we can have hospitals, so that we can have an aged pension, so that we can have the things that we expect to have in Australia when you retire….If nothing else, the government and systems should very much be concerned about civic engagement of young people,” Katie said.
Katie’s report is designed for governments, funders, youth organisations and policymakers who want to understand and youth advocates wanting to understand how to meaningfully integrate youth into decision-making.
To get such broad support for youth in decision-making, it will require a change in what she sees as a form of ageism.
“I think when people talk about ageism, and they often think about older people like, we reject like or we neglect to see the expertise of the grey community. But what I see the most is a there's a real disregard for the expertise and experience of children and young people.”
Katie said that experience collided with other community views towards young people “where we idolise children and when something bad happens [to them] it’s the worst thing in the world”.
“It's not that we don’t value them we absolutely do. We just don't see the value of them as participants in forming how the community looks, how the world looks, what the government does, any of that, which is just strange to me, because they’re such a really important group in our communities and our future,” she said.
Not capturing their insights and getting them engaged could create “huge” issues down the track. “If you're not doing the right things, then then that can have a huge cost to the community later on.”
Katie said: “My concern is that if we continue to disregard them, they will disengage from our civic bodies, and that is horrendous for our country. We need engaged citizens. We need young people who believe that a government is working for them, because that is technically what it's supposed to be doing.”
Potential Angus quote: That potential disconnect matters. At Tanck, we spend a lot of time thinking about how organisations can build stronger and more constructive relationships with government. But that will only be effective if the next generation of Australians are not feeling sidelined or disillusioned. We can’t build a healthy civic culture on a foundation that young people are turning away from and losing faith in.
Potential Angus idea: Because if young Australians begin to see the system as unresponsive or irrelevant, the danger isn’t just a dip in voter turnout. It’s the rise of something more volatile: a generation that feels so unseen, so unheard, that the idea of burning it all down becomes more appealing than working within it.
Around the world trust in institutions is declining, and populist movements are gaining ground by tapping into this kind of disillusionment. Australia isn’t immune to these threats.
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