These Overnewton Anglican Community College senior students are used to ruling at school – and soon, they will be running the state.
In June, year 12 students Tessa Buchanan, Stephanie Steinhoff-Pino, Megan Spiteri and Ruby Cashmore and year 11’s Lachlan Stevenson and Megan Lam will experience the cut and thrust of politics at the 29th annual Victorian Youth Parliament.
All legislation passed by the Youth Parliament is referred to relevant government ministers for consideration.
More than 25 Youth Parliament bills
have gone on to become actual legislation, including drug testing for drivers and over-the-counter availability of the morning-after pill.
The students of Overnewton’s Keilor campus have drafted a piece of legislation calling for all schools to introduce “no gender” school uniforms.
Stephanie Steinhoff-Pino said the draft
bill tackled a unique issue that had never been before Parliament.
“We have a couple of transgender people
at our school and we find that a lot of
them are struggling with our uniforms,” she said.
“For girls, we have pants for the winter uniform, but the summer uniform is just a dress and sometimes we find that a bit impractical and a bit of a nuisance.”
Charlene Macaulay
