A former NSW Commissioner for Children has advocated that youth need to be thought of as a collective with attention paid to their needs as they grow up to make a valuable contribution to Australia.
Orator Gillian Calvert, with a lifelong commitment to children and their wellbeing throughout her career, on Sunday delivered the 23rd George Briscoe Kerferd Oration held in the Beechworth Soldier’s Memorial Hall.
The thought-provoking oration titled ‘Their Future Our Choice: Creating an Australia that works for young children' captured the interest of close to a combined 200 people gathered at the venue as well as online with the live streamed event.
“Firstly we need to think about children, and then to think about and reflect on what actions we take to create a world, a community or a society that puts children's needs in the picture, and that provides for children in a way that enables them to grow up to make a contribution,” Ms Calvert said.
In her role as commissioner, Ms Calvert said she advocated for children's rights and wellbeing, to ensure their voices were heard in decisions affecting them, and to hold government and systems accountable for creating better outcomes for all children.
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In her insightful oration covering economic, political and social thinking to include children, Ms Calvert explored the low status of children in Australian society exposing the gap between the rhetoric of children first and the reality.
The orator started where this gap has left Australia's children, then understanding what drives policy choices, and how rhetoric can be brought closer to reality.
Ms Calvert touched on some wider social forces including economic ones with children excluded from it due to poverty and inequality.
“Today, one in seven children lives in poverty and income and wealth inequality are the highest they've been in two decades,” she said.
“How we think about children matters because it affects the way we act for children.”
Ms Calvert said two thinking barriers get in the way.
“Australians don't see most social policy issues as children's issues,” she said.
“When Australians think about children, we focus on spaces where children receive care, home, school and childcare.
“This means that children are simply out of mind when Australians think about other policy issues such as transport, defence and taxation.”
Ms Calvert also briefly explored three things to make a difference - giving children a voice, tackling poverty and inequality, and researching children's services as a public good, not as a market.
“Giving children a voice has an added benefit of making them visible,” she said.
“Children need support from adults to organise, and children's commissions are one way of doing this and to give all children a seat at the democracy table becoming increasingly more important."
Ms Calvert said she has welcomed current moves to look at taxation reform, investments in social and affordable housing, equalising public school funding and scaling up investment in childcare.
The orator invited people to make children's wellbeing a guiding principle for an inclusive Australia where everyone has a place and can make a contribution.
Ms Calvert said children's wellbeing is a choice made by adults.
“We shape the world they live in and that they're inheriting," she said.
“We can choose to build an Australia that supports its children or one that holds its back.
“It truly is their future and our choice.”
Beechworth’s Kim Rowley said Ms Calvert had a deep and intense interest trying to make things better for children in roles she has had as an academic and as a Children's Commissioner.
“Her work has been of great benefit to many lawyers and people working in the child and child protection field," she said.
“I really enjoyed her thought-provoking talk today.
“We all have got a lot to learn about how we can put forward the interests of children.”
Kerferd Oration chair Ross Kearney said Ms Calvert had an amazing history doing so much with children's and youth’s rights over the years.
“It was terrific to get her insights and hear what she thinks will assist us with solutions," he said.
The annual Kerferd Oration is sponsored by BankWAW, Quercus Beechworth and Indigo Shire Council
Visit www. kerferdoration.org to view the oration.
