Young Australians Are Sitting In Parliament Next Week. The Bills Are Harder Than You'd Expect.
By Bain Dohne
CEO & Founder, The Odyssey Leadership Foundation
Housing. Artificial intelligence. Mental health. Family violence. Youth homelessness. Hate crime.
These are not the talking points from a school debate.
They are the bills before the 2026 Y NSW Youth Parliament, and between 14 and 16 July, they will be debated in the actual Legislative Assembly and Legislative Council chambers at NSW Parliament, 6 Macquarie Street, Sydney.
The authors are 15 to 18 years old.
They have been preparing since April.
The public gallery is free to attend.
A Live Stream is being arranged.
You’re Invited.
The Odyssey Leadership Foundation is a DGR Item 2 organisation and has allocated funds donated to the Foundation specifically towards The Y NSW Youth Parliamentary program.
Any donation above $2 is tax-deductible and allocated towards programs that directly impact the Youth of Australia.
WHAT THIS PROGRAM ACTUALLY IS
The Y NSW Youth Parliament is not a simulation in the way that phrase normally implies.
It is a year-long structured program run by The Y NSW (Formerly YMCA), and every electorate in NSW is invited to attend.
High school students in Years 10 to 12 are selected to represent their local electorate.
They attend a residential training camp.
They spend months in committees researching their chosen policy area, consulting community leaders, and drafting legislation they will then defend in a debate in the NSW Parliament.
The program has been operating in New South Wales for 25 years. More than 1,000 young people have come through it.
Bills from previous cohorts have influenced real legislation.
The Domestic Violence Disclosure Scheme is one of them.
The program runs a bicameral parliament, with a Legislative Assembly and a Legislative Council. Leadership positions, including Premier and Opposition Leader, are contested and determined by a vote.
It receives no State Government funding. YMCA NSW funds it. Alumni volunteers run the operational machinery.
That is a significant fact, and it belongs near the top of this article.
THE 2026 NOTICE PAPER
The 2026 cohort has brought eleven bills to the chamber. Reading them is instructive.
· There is a bill for statewide guidelines on the ethical use and accountability of artificial intelligence.
· There is a bill to protect the confidentiality and autonomy of young people navigating the mental health system.
· There is a bill on family violence in rural and regional communities.
· A bill addressing hate-motivated violence among young people.
· A bill on youth homelessness, using financial incentives on vacant land and structured collaboration between government and non-government organisations.
· A bill on women's protection in domestic violence situations.
· A bill on disability access and community engagement.
· A bill on sustainable transport and livability.
· A bill proposing that youth voices be embedded in the NSW curriculum, specifically on student wellbeing, Indigenous integration, and AI education.
The national matter of public importance for 2026 is housing.
Specifically: whether instability in Australia's contemporary housing context is a key factor undermining social and community cohesion.
Read the AI bill in the context of what Australia has not yet resolved on algorithmic accountability.
Read the mental health confidentiality bill in the context of how rarely young people's preferences are centred in the system designed to treat them.
Read the rural family violence bill, knowing how many inquiries have named the problem and how slowly the legislative response has moved.
These topics were not assigned. They were chosen by young people who spent months researching them.
The selection is itself evidence.
THE GAP IN FUNDING AND WHAT IT DETERMINES
I am not a disinterested observer here.
The Odyssey Leadership Foundation exists, in part, because of a conviction that structured leadership development at the right stage changes the arc of what a person becomes.
Youth Parliament is one of the clearest implementations of that principle I have encountered.
The program costs approximately $4,000 per participant to run. The minimum participant contribution is $1,700.
The remainder is covered by YMCA NSW and donor and sponsor contributions.
Scholarships are available. The program actively recruits from First Nations communities, regional and rural areas, financially disadvantaged backgrounds, and young people living with disabilities.
The gap between $4,000 and $1,700 determines participation.
For a student from a regional area without local sponsorship and without the capacity to fundraise, the outcome is direct.
They do not attend.
That outcome is preventable.
ATTENDING
I will be there from the 14th to 16th July representing the Foundation, and I invite you to attend, either in person or via the livestream. This includes the youths in your lives.
The sitting week is open to the public at no cost. Sessions run from 10 am to 5 pm across both chambers each day. Each portfolio debate runs for roughly 1.5 hrs and can be viewed in person or via a LiveStream link.
If you can attend one session, the national matter of public importance on housing opens at noon on Tuesday, 14 July, in the Legislative Assembly.
Registration is through the Y NSW Youth Parliament listing on Eventbrite.
If you are not in Sydney, follow Y NSW on social media.
If you are in a position to sponsor a participant from your electorate in 2027, or wish to sponsor programs such as this, please reach out to me at the Foundation via the website www.odysseyleaders.org
The cost is materially less than most professional sponsorship categories. The return to the participant is not comparable.
WHAT THIS PROGRAM REPRESENTS
I can write a version of this article that frames Youth Parliament as an inspiring story about the next generation. That framing undersells it.
Youth Parliament is a functioning civic structure. It has and will produce legislation.
Some of that legislation becomes law.
It is bicameral, contested, and sustained throughout the year. It runs on donated funding and volunteer labour in a state that has not chosen to fund it from the public purse.
Australia has young people who can draft a coherent bill on rural family violence, enter a parliament chamber, and defend it against amendment.
Those same young people will be making decisions in two decades that the people currently occupying those chambers will not be in a position to reverse.
Preparation matters. The program exists. The gallery is open. The youth are our future.
Parliament is in session on the fourteenth.
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