A budget throw back...

Can't leave out a trip to Canberra.

This is the radio report I filed for Melbourne's Student Youth Network after the federal budget this year.

Joe Hockey, Heather Riddout, Claire Martin, Steve Fielding and plenty more Happy House on the Hill characters talking about what the budget meant for Australian kids.

Panorama Wednesday May 12

It's a Hack Attack!

Hack on Triple J jumped on board the Jane Train this week after The Age published that old opinion piece on Tuesday.

Tuesday, John Barrington was asking around on the youth vote, youth issues and where young people sit on the campaign radar.

Friday arvo saw a panel discussion on the youth vote coming up to the federal election. Get Up's Communications Director Sam, presenter Kate O'Toole, talk back callers and your's truly batted back and forth on Julia Gillard, Kevin Rudd, the 2010 election, and I may have suggested that Facebook was going to 'devour it's own face' in response to a caller who said Facebook would devour itself... You'll have to listen to find out for sure though.

Now that the election has been called I'll be heading to Darwin to cover it in the marginal seat of Solomon for Local ABC Radio. You never know where else I might pop up though... Keep an eye on Crikey.

The Age gets a piece a me...

Too many of our youth are doing it tough in the "lucky country".

Fewer than 3000 asylum seekers arrived in Australia by boat last year. Compare this with the fact that about 44,000 young Australians are homeless.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard has made major policy changes in the areas of asylum seekers, the mining tax since she deposed Kevin Rudd, and is set to handle climate change. Why has she ignored domestic social policy? Her motivation is clear: as Lenore Taylor put it in The Sydney Morning Herald last week: ''tough on boats, easy on votes''.

Given that Gillard began her political career as president of the Australian Union of Students in 1983, cut her teeth in unions and has also been federal minister for social inclusion and for education, the new Prime Minister should have a much greater focus on the issues facing disadvantaged young Australians.

And this Labor government is well aware of the many shortfalls in services available to underprivileged young people in Australia. In fact, it buried a report on the issue last year.
YouTHINK: Your Say was yet another of many reports commissioned by Kevin Rudd. Conducted by the Salvation Army, the consultation process was national, and involved more than 1000 young Australians deemed disadvantaged and at-risk.

When the report was finalised, the Salvos were forced to sit on the findings for eight months. It was only in the week after the federal budget was handed down that they were allowed to post the report on their website.

No government representative would comment on the report when it was made public on May 17, or in the days afterwards.

Youth housing, Centrelink services and last year's COAG ''earn or learn'' compact with Young Australians were the main focus of the report. The findings were alarming, and are compounded by research subsequently conducted by Mission Australia and headspace youth health services, which show a steady increase in substance abuse and mental health problems in disadvantaged young Australians.

Most participants in the YouTHINK: Your Say report had been homeless at one time or another. One young bloke who took part in the Western Australian consultation said: "Can't get a house without a stable job; can't get a job without an address."

The Ken Henry tax review, the National Union of Students, the Australian Council of Social Service, the Salvation Army and the National Welfare Rights Network have all called for at least a minor increase in rental assistance this year, yet no action has been taken.

The Compact with Young Australians was implemented after it was endorsed at the COAG meeting in April last year, and included a national youth participation requirement: earn or learn.

There are no provisions for people affected by learning difficulties or poor mental or physical health. Children in caring roles are also overlooked.

A young woman who participated in a Canberra consultation said: "It's hard to find work when there is pressure on teenagers to look after mum and dad."

Non-government organisations such as Mission Australia, St Vincent de Paul and the Salvation Army provide mentoring and education programs to tackle the challenges faced by young people with learning and behavioural disorders or caring responsibilities in gaining access to Centrelink payments. The government has yet to take this step.

''Customer'' responses to Centrelink services were also a focus of the report.
Most participants called for a change so that youth workers delivered youth services at Centrelink: "We can relate to them, we trust them, we know them, they know us and they know how we live."

Far from heeding calls for greater access to youth services, the Rudd government cut Centrelink staff as part of the last federal budget; it falls to Prime Minister Gillard to act on the chronic gaps in youth services.

The spirit of one-upmanship prevails in election-year politics and battle lines are strong - but they are not true to the real needs or interests of all voters.

If National Union of Students president Carla Drakeford has her sums right, 70 per cent of students voted Labor at the last election - and they don't like being ignored.

Gillard has a hard task ahead of her in maintaining this strong student and youth voting base.
Her government will need to listen to their views and heed their advice - especially when it was specifically asked for.

Jane Ryan studies journalism at RMIT.

But you could have seen it first here.

ABC Darwin gets a piece-a-me.

Dogs don't mind abseiling.

Thrity-six metres off the side of a Darwin Esplanade hotel? No worries.

Earlier today Australian Defence Force commanders and soldiers were undergoing adventure training, and their trusty four-legged friends were along for the ride.

The focus of adventure training is to build courage, determination and confidence according to Corporal Joseph Abbey. In this case, it involves lowering one’s self to the ground face first, from a great height, with a dog hanging from a harness between your legs.

‘It’s just a training course to put guys out of their comfort zones, see what coping mechanisms they use,’ he said.

If you’re worried about the dogs, don’t be. It’s the soldiers who balk.

Corporal John Cannon is the Explosion Detection Dog senior handler in the First Combat Engineer Regiment. He’s done three tours of duty in Afghanistan since 2005 and says the dogs don’t mind it a bit.

‘The dog’s in a harness, and he’s attached to my harness so he’s actually hanging beneath my legs. Initially they used to be a little bit frightened and try to wriggle out, but now they just sort of relax and dangle out of the harness.’

But while these dogs are a man’s best friend, Corporal Cannon points out they are combat tools first and foremost.

‘I tell the people on the dog handlers course, if you’ve joined military dogs to work with dogs, maybe you shouldn’t be here, maybe you should be in the circus... Even though we work with dogs, the bottom line is, we’re engineers, we search for Improvised Explosive Devices, and that’s our bread and butter.’

So don’t try to lower Fido off the shed after reading this. Rule of thumb: If they can’t sniff out a bomb at a few kilometres, they probably won’t like it.

You could have seen it here first...