Our policy platform reflects what young people have told us they need to live safe, dignified, and hopeful lives. It centres intergenerational fairness, meaningful participation, economic security, freedom from violence, and a safe future for all.
This platform is grounded in community consultation through:
The Youth Statement consultations, which gathered young people’s lived experience, priorities, and stories across key issues.
The Feminesto drafting process, which translated those priorities into feminist, intersectional policy directions and concrete budget and legislative asks.
Across both processes, the focus was on centring young people who are most impacted by inequality and exclusion, and turning what we heard into practical changes governments can fund, legislate, and deliver.
Policy Platform: Australian Federal Budget 2026
The TL;DR
Based on our consultations with young people on what they want, in this year’s Federal Budget, we wanted to see:
Power-sharing youth governance and decision-making structures.
Student debt relief, secure work, and skills pathways.
Inclusion-by-design: accessibility, cultural safety, and better data.
Lift income support above poverty line and remove punitive settings.
Large-scale social/community housing investment and affordability measures.
Health and wellbeing policy that removes cost barriers.
Generationally fair tax reform and reduction of inequitable concessions.
Strong investment in prevention and response to gendered violence
Online safety, privacy, and platform accountability for tech-facilitated GBV.
Youth-centred climate justice policy and ending fossil fuel subsidies.
A stronger rights framework and rights-based policies (domestic and international).
Key Pillars
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Why this matters to young people
Young people experience the consequences of decisions made without them, and those impacts are not evenly shared. Systems that ignore accessibility, cultural safety, and lived experience create barriers to participation and worsen inequality.
Policy asks
Meaningful youth participation
Establish youth decision-making structures with real power, including in economic portfolios and budget decision making.
Education, skills, and student debt
Deliver student debt relief and change debt settings so they do not outpace wages.
Invest in training and pathways into secure work and fair wages.
Intersectionality + inclusion by design
Build accessibility-by-design into consultations and policy processes.
Create culturally safe consultation pathways and proactive outreach.
Improve data disaggregation and diversity-responsive measurement to inform policy design.
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Why this matters to young people
Cost-of-living pressure, insecure work, and housing unaffordability shape nearly every other outcome for young people. Economic and housing instability also block participation in civic life and consultations.
Policy asks
Economic security and justice (income support + stability)
Lift income support above the poverty line, remove punitive settings, and expand eligibility.
Centre generational equity in housing policy.
Housing
Invest in social and community housing and implement affordability measures including rent stabilisation.
Reform planning to prioritise community and affordability over speculation.
Implement generationally equitable tax reform that reduces wealth concentration and addresses housing market distortions.
Health and wellbeing
Address cost barriers that lead young people to forgo essentials, including healthcare.
Treat cost-of-living pressure as a key risk factor for mental ill-health and suicide prevention.
Tax reform
Reduce inequitable concessions that shift the burden onto young people during wage stagnation and rising living costs.
Align tax settings with intergenerational fairness and public investment needs.
Intergenerational inequality
Reform settings that entrench a lower standard of living for younger generations and favour older cohorts through concessions and structural advantages.
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Why this matters to young people
Young people are experiencing high and rising levels of gendered and sexual violence, including online harms. This limits freedom, safety, and participation in public life.
Policy asks
Gendered violence
Invest in frontline services, primary prevention, and perpetrator accountability measures.
Respond to evidence of increased violence and widespread sexual harassment among young people.
Digital rights + online safety
Strengthen online safety and platform accountability for technology-facilitated gender-based violence.
Improve privacy and data protections.
“Design out misogyny” through safety-by-design and accountable product governance.
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Why this matters to young people
Young people are living through intersecting crises, including worsening climate impacts and climate anxiety, with spillover effects across housing, education, health, and work.
Policy asks
Climate justice
Implement youth-centred climate policy that supports a just transition and reduces compounding inequality.
Provide wellbeing supports that recognise climate anxiety and cost-of-living pressures.
End subsidies that entrench fossil fuels and implement fair revenue measures that fund wellbeing and public services.
Human rights
Strengthen Australia’s human rights protections, including a Human Rights Act and policies grounded in dignity and safety for all communities.
Support rights-based approaches to refugee policy and international solidarity, including Palestine.
Our analysis of the 2026 Federal Budget:
A start on intergenerational equity; but young people need more than rhetoric
The Persephone Network welcomes the Treasurer’s acknowledgement of “our intergenerational responsibilities” in the 2026 Federal Budget, and recognises that this year’s Budget takes some important steps in the right direction. But if intergenerational equity is to be more than a talking point, it must extend beyond the next five financial years and it must be backed by long-term, structural reform.
“Considering future generations means planning for the challenges they will actually face — including the climate crisis, worsening inequality, and rising gendered violence,” said a spokesperson for The Persephone Network. “This Budget is a promising start, but it is just that: a start.”
What we welcomed
Economic security and justice
The Budget includes meaningful measures to support young people experiencing homelessness and housing insecurity, including:
$59.4 million to supplement rental income for community housing providers, supporting housing for more than 4,000 young people aged 16–24 at risk of or experiencing homelessness.
A $2.0 billion Local Infrastructure Fund to support local and state governments to build essential infrastructure to enable new housing.
The Government also announced reforms to capital gains and negative gearing that it says will tilt the market towards first home owners, estimating around 75,000 people will be supported to buy their first home. Replacing the Howard-era 50 per cent capital gains tax discount with inflation-adjusted indexation is a positive step, and a modest reduction in house prices is expected.
However, the decision to grandfather aspects of negative gearing reforms will significantly limit their impact and more ambitious reform will be required to deliver a genuinely fair go for young people trying to build financial security.
Freedom from violence
Gendered violence is an unacceptable tragedy in Australia. The Budget includes welcome commitments to prevent violence and respond to technology-facilitated abuse, including:
$77.6 million for age-appropriate consent and respectful relationships education, reaching 5.9 million people.
Extending trauma-informed police training to 6,100 police members.
$11.7 million for the Family Violence and Cross-examination of Parties Scheme, including measures to prevent victim-survivors being cross-examined by perpetrators in family law proceedings.
$182.6 million to address known misuse of the Child Support Scheme and improve safety and consistency for families.
$218.3 million for the First Nations Action Plan to support a locally led network of Aboriginal community-controlled organisations delivering specialist family, domestic and sexual violence services, and to extend the Leaving Violence Program regional trials to 2027.
$5.4 million for the eSafety Commissioner, including reforms targeting technology-facilitated abuse and a proposed digital duty of care to restrict harmful content.
These measures are important — but the scale of the crisis remains enormous, and too many victim-survivors still cannot access domestic, family, or sexual violence support services when or where they need them.
Where the Budget fell short
While the Government has spoken about rebalancing the scales from those who already hold significant wealth towards those trying to build it, the Budget did not consistently apply an intergenerational lens in practice.
In particular:
There was no clear focus on youth leadership, despite repeated references to “future generations” and despite young people calling for meaningful participation in decision-making.
The Budget was notably silent on strengthening human rights protections, a priority young people raised throughout consultation.
The reduction in NDIS spending is likely to disproportionately impact women and young women who often bear increased caring responsibilities and significant barriers to accessing health services without the creation of other support mechanisms.
There was limited attention to the climate crisis, despite its disproportionate impacts on young people and communities already facing structural disadvantage, including First Nations peoples.
Conclusion
Young people expected more, particularly given the Government’s repeated commitments to intergenerational equity. We acknowledge this Budget as a step forward — but meaningful progress will require sustained, long-term investment and structural reform. The Persephone Network looks forward to continuing to engage with the Government to help build a safer, fairer future for young people and for the generations that follow.