Portfolio — 23 March 2026

The Minister for Early Childhood Education and Minister for Youth, Senator Walsh, opened Youth Meets Parliament Week on 23 March, marking the formal activation of the government's 2026 youth advisory cohort [TA-260323-educat-37e8beb2347f]. Forty-nine new members of the Youth Advisory Groups, along with members of the Youth Steering Committee, arrived in Canberra after being selected from a field of more than 500 applicants aged 16 to 24 from across Australia.

The cohort is deliberately broad in its representation: it includes First Nations young people, members from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, young people with lived experience of mental ill-health, regional and remote Australians, gender diverse members, young parents, people with disability, and members from LGBTIQA+ communities.

During the week, the youth representatives will meet with Ministers, departmental officials, and Members of Parliament, and the committees will formally advise the government on a range of policy areas: climate change and water, countering foreign interference, First Nations affairs, mental health, and sports participation [TA-260323-educat-35b083e89985]. The breadth of those policy topics signals that the advisory function is not ceremonial — the government is channelling this cohort into active policy conversations across multiple portfolios simultaneously.

The architecture underpinning the week reflects a deliberate institutional build-out under the current government: the Office for Youth sits at its centre, supported by the Youth Steering Committee (established 2022) and the Youth Advisory Groups (established 2023). Senator Walsh's framing positions these structures as a direct counter to youth disengagement from political processes — embedding lived experience into government decision-making rather than consulting at arm's length.

With no parliamentary segment present today, the minister's activity is confined to the comms stream, but the scale of the cohort and the seniority of the meetings scheduled give the week substantive policy weight beyond a symbolic opening.