LESSON 12.6 How can citizens participate in Australia’s democracy?
LEARNING INTENTION By the end of this lesson you should be able to: • explain how to participate in Australia’s democracy including the electoral system
• name ways to contact elected representatives • outline how lobby and interest groups work.
Tune in Young people can help make big changes in the world. They have the right to speak up about issues that affect them. 1. What is a change that you’d like to see in your school or local community? 2. Do you feel like you can do anything about it? Why or why not? 3. If the problem is bigger than you ýrst thought, who else can you involve in solving the problem?
FIGURE1 Student activists voice their opinions.
12.6.1 Using the electoral system Citizenship is not just a legal status. It is also a means to get involved and be part of the decision-making in our country. As a citizen, you are on the electoral rol l, and this means that you can participate in the following ways: • enrolling to vote when they turn 18 • voting in elections (federal, state and local) • working at polling places • joining political parties • running as political party candidates. At a different level, active citizenship means getting involved with your local community. Active citizenship can be as small as organising a clean-up of your local street, park or even your school. Or it can be as big as educating people about Australia’s democratic values, skills and participation. Active citizenship involves six broad categories of political participation, shown in FIGURE2 .
460 Jacaranda Humanities Alive 7 Victorian Curriculum Third Edition
Made with FlippingBook interactive PDF creator