Censorship censors the real issues

By Taara Malhi, Youth Press Gallery, Youth Parliament 2025

Note: Articles in this newsletter edition were produced by the Youth Press Gallery at various stages of the Youth Parliament 2025 programme. Accordingly, the content presented reflects the context and timing at the date of its original writing.

Youth Parliament received publicity due to censorship concerns. However, this left the issues that Youth MPs care passionately about in the dark.

Youth Parliament 2025 was an extremely controversial and chaotic event, facing backlash as some Youth MPs sent out an open letter disclosing their dissatisfaction with the event.

The event has been described as “tokenistic” and allegations by some Youth MPs have gone as far as calling Minister for Youth James Meager “The Minister of Censorship”.

This follows many of the Youth MPs commenting that their speeches were almost re-written in order to stay non-partisan and non-political.

Many Youth MPs share that they feel the concept of keeping Youth Parliament non-political undermines the point of Youth Parliament – to allow youth to share their political views.

Youth MP Tautalaleleia Sa’u vocalises his concerns: “I think that definitely this is a big hindrance of freedom of speech.”

This is a historic milestone, showing young people are no longer afraid to speak out against the system and demand they are heard.

We hope this will empower and inspire Kiwis to speak up for what they believe in, to oppose and stand strong.

During the two general debate hearings, a variety of topics that represent the opinions of our youth were brought up, such as mental health, [alleged] genocide in Palestine, street racing, bullying, environmental concerns, and much more.

All these topics are so complex and require deep examination.

Youth MP James Watson shares: “The media has solely been focused on censorship.

“When we focus on censorship we detract from the issues that truly matter to youth and Kiwis.”

Due to the public eye being focused on the censorship, there have been almost no discussions in the media regarding the urgent issues the Youth parliamentarians have brought up.

It is vital that as well as highlighting the Government censorship, the media and the Youth MPs continue to bring light to these communal and often systematic issues that brought them to this space.