survey results
| 1.1 |
Australia's performance at addressing issues |
The lists in Tables 1 and 2 present the top five issues that young people in the survey believe Australia is addressing well or poorly. Also listed in Table 3 are the top five issues important to young people. Graphs depicting the full results of these are in Figures 1 to 4.
Topping the list of issues that Australia deals well with is education opportunities, which also rates highly in importance to young people.
Table 1 Top Five issues that young people believe Australia deals well with (percent of total respondents).
|
Well /
Very Well |
Important/
Very Important |
| Education opportunities |
55.2% |
89.8% |
| Multiculturalism |
49.7% |
66.9% |
| Technological advance |
48.6% |
76.2% |
| Human rights |
47.6% |
88.1% |
| Personal safety |
47.4% |
88.1% |
Youth unemployment followed by unemployment in general, top the list of issues that Australia deals poorly with. These issues also rate highly in importance to young people.
Table 2 Top Five issues that young people believe Australia deals poorly with (percent of total respondents).
|
Poor /
Very Poor |
Important/
Very Important |
| Youth unemployment |
45.5% |
81.1% |
| Unemployment |
38.9% |
77.2% |
| Reconciliation |
38.4% |
59.0% |
| Environmental protection |
32.8% |
78.8% |
| Community involvement |
29.0% |
63.3% |
The issues listed in the survey were important or very important to the majority of respondents. Education opportunities was rated as an important issue by the most respondents (89.8%), closely followed by personal safety and human rights (88.1% apiece). Low proportions of respondents rated these issues as 'not important at all', however reconciliation attracted the highest proportion in this category (15.1%).
Table 3 Top Five issues that are important or very important to young people
| |
Important /
Very Important |
| Education opportunities |
89.8% |
| Personal safety |
88.1% |
| Human rights |
88.1% |
| Work & careers |
86.3% |
| Family needs |
84.4% |
| 1.2 |
Australia's Biggest Challenges |
A list of issues were presented to young people and they were asked to indicate which would be the biggest challenges for Australia in the next 20 years. Tables 4 and 5 list the top five issues that are likely and not likely to be big concerns for Australia. Results for the full list of issues presented in the survey are shown in Figure 3.
Around two thirds of young people thought that environmental protection would be one of the biggest issues (64%), closely followed by unemployment (63.5%).
Table 4 Top five biggest issues that Australia is likely to face in the next 20 years.
| |
Likely |
| Environmental protection |
64.1% |
| Unemployment |
63.5% |
| Technological advancement |
47.2% |
| Work & careers |
46.5% |
| Population |
45.6% |
Not likely to be one of the biggest issues for Australia, according to young people, is health education in the community (20.6%). Population and personal safety (19.6% and 19.3% respectively) also appear in the top five.
Table 5 Top five biggest issues that Australia is unlikely to face in the next 20 years.
| |
Not likely |
| Health education in community |
20.6% |
| Population |
19.6% |
| Personal safety |
19.3% |
| Multiculturalism |
18.0% |
| Reconciliation |
16.4% |
| 1.3 |
Can young people make a difference? |
Around 25%-40% of respondents were unable to decide whether young people could make a difference on the biggest issues possibly facing Australia in the next 20 years. Of those who were able to make a judgement, environmental protection (62.8%) is where the majority believe they can make a difference. This was also rated by the majority of young people as one of the biggest issues facing Australia in the next 20 years. Education (61.7%) was another area where young people believe they can make a difference.
Table 6
| |
Likely |
| Environmental protection |
62.8% |
| Education |
61.7% |
| Work & careers |
53.3% |
| Technological advancement |
53.0% |
| Multiculturalism |
51.4% |
At the top of the list of issues where young people feel they are unlikely to make a difference is economics (33.7%), closely followed by relationships with other countries (33.0%). The results in Figure 4 below show that these two issues show almost equal proportions of young people in the 'likely', 'maybe' and 'not likely categories', suggesting that they are issues that young people would not normally think about.
Table 7
| |
Not Likely |
| Economics |
33.7% |
| Relationships with other countries |
33.0% |
| Population |
23.2% |
| Unemployment |
20.3% |
| Social justice |
20.0% |
| 