Commonwealth Electoral Amendment (Lowering Voting Age and Improving Democratic Participation) Bill 2018

JSJ – Second Reading Speech

For far too long, politics has failed to properly represent young people or the issues they care about.

There are many within this place, and beyond, who think young people don’t care about our world or haven’t earned the right to participate in our society, from a perceived lack of life experience or maturity.

Thursday, 21st June 2018

Australian Greens Youth spokesperson Senator Jordon Steele-John has delivered his second reading speech on the Commonwealth Electoral Amendment (Lower the Voting Age and Improve Democratic Participation) Bill 2018.

Senator Steele-John's speech will kick off debate on the issue of whether 16 and 17 year olds have a right to vote for the first time in Australian history.

Wednesday, 20th June 2018

After a week of national service outages, Telstra have announced they will be cutting a quarter of their Australian workforce in a bid to improve customer service, a move labelled by the Greens as “nonsense”.

Australian Greens Telecommunications spokesperson Senator Jordon Steele-John said today’s announcement from Telstra was the inevitable result of the company’s privatisation over the last two decades.

Thursday, 7th June 2018

Australian Greens Digital Rights spokesperson Senator Jordon Steele-John has called on Cyber Security Minister Angus Taylor to detail how the government’s planned cyber security legislation will bypass end-to-end encryption without compromising the security of that encrypted data.

Senator Steele-John said he was concerned the proposed legislation would simply obligate companies to handover the contents of encrypted data, absolving the government of any hand in compromising that data.

Wednesday, 6th June 2018

Australian Greens Digital Rights spokesperson Senator Jordon Steele-John has called on Cyber Security Minister Angus Taylor to detail how the government’s planned cyber security legislation will bypass end-to-end encryption without compromising the security of that encrypted data.

Senator Steele-John said he was concerned the proposed legislation would simply obligate companies to handover the contents of encrypted data, absolving the government of any hand in compromising that data.

Wednesday, 16 May 2018

Australian Greens Youth Affairs spokesperson Senator Jordon Steele-John has pointed to the results of a Deloitte survey released today, which show young people’s faith in politics is at an all-time-low, as evidence we must lower the voting age to 16 in Australia.

“Politics doesn't hear young people, and doesn't value young people, because the old parties don't have to rely on them as a constituency, and therefore don't care about their issues or their future. It is absolutely shameful," Senator Steele-John said.

Tuesday, 15 May 2018

Australian Greens Digital Rights spokesperson Senator Jordon Steele-John has backed calls for an immediate overhaul of digital rights protections in Australia in the face of eroding online privacy and the rise of surveillance capitalism, following the release of Digital Rights Watch’ ‘The State of Digital Rights’ report.