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Youth parliament > Press gallery > Question Time by Antonia Anisy
Question Time by Antonia Anisy
“Madam Speaker, my question is to the Minister of Finance....”
“Madam Speaker, my question is to the Minister of Housing....”
“Madam Speaker, my question is to the Minister of Health...”
“Madam Speaker, do you ever get a sense of deja vu?”
 By Antonia Anisy
With 121 Youth MPs questioning Government Ministers, the house was
alive and kicking with inquiring minds, insightful answers and yawns
featured in the Dominion Post the following morning, Tuesday 10th July
( what is it about those chairs?!). Questions and subsequent responses
showed a high level of thinking from our Youth MPs and addressed
several of New Zealand’s pressing issues in finance, health, education,
employment and more.
With a broad range of topics discussed in the house, the MPs were face
with both positive pleasing responses and room for the nation’s
improvement in some areas. While it all seemed doom, gloom and sleepy
eyes on the discussion of taxation and the ever occurring issue of
boy-racers, the atmosphere perked up upon discussion of the very
topical Youth Parliament which was deemed effective in its purpose of
“encourage(ing) active citizenship of young people.”
In general, the MPs were impressed to be informed of the extensive
media coverage of this event, standing at around 450 newspaper features
across the country before the commencement of Youth Parliament, as well
as further media coverage across the 4 days of Youth Parliament and
everything happening under the watchful eyes of the Youth Press Gallery.
Of paramount importance seemed to be the issue of health initiatives in
New Zealand, with questions on current health issues being plentiful
and leading to informative and valuable answers. The Youth MPs asked
questions of which held relevance across the board of New Zealand
health and well-being. From Shelley Robotham addressing the issue of
the bird flu pandemic with the response revealing the governments
action on the issue in September 2006 to the plans behind improving the
mental, social and sexual health outcomes of young people brought up by
Talosaga Sifakula which revealed “the amount of money spent on youth
health went up 15% in the last 3 years” reassuring the plethora of
young people present that their health issues were not falling on empty
bank accounts or “deaf” government ears.
The session was concluded by a short speech to which people were asked
whether or not they had any objections to that. I sensed a few MPs were
restraining themselves from asking how short is short and whether or
not this action could merely be disregarded in order to get straight on
to the General Debate which was to hold the greater “goodies” for both
the press and the MPs themselves.
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