Wednesday, 9 September 2026

 Martha HAYLETT (Ripon) (09:53): Speaker, I rise on behalf of you, the incredible member for Bendigo West. Back in May year 9 students from Castlemaine Secondary College took part in an innovative civics and citizenship education program called UnAssembly. It was run by Folio Collective and Really Local in partnership with Castlemaine Community House. The two-day student citizens assembly and mock election taught students all about democracy. They developed and applied key democratic skills, including constructive disagreement, critical thinking and compromise to design their ideal democracy. Together they set their own ground rules for the process and deliberated their way to consensus on fundamental features of a democratic system, including the basic values on which democracy depends.

In the mock election the students cast ballots in a pizza vote to experience how different voting systems ‍– first past the post, preferential and proportional – can result in different pizzas being elected. And their votes mattered. The election results were delivered and devoured by the students. The joint report makes recommendations for improving democracy, including an institutional voice for nature and future generations and introducing optional voting from 16 years of age. As a proud former student of Castlemaine Secondary College myself, I would like to congratulate the students, staff and UnAssembly team for proving that young people are ready to do more than just study democracy, they are ready to practise it.