Vote 4 What

Damoon Mehrpour

Damoon Mehrpour, 23 has been a member of both major parties. He joined Labor in 2007 at the age of 18 and worked for the federal election that year, answering phones at the party headquarters in Sussex Street, Sydney. He later became involved in the Young Labor movement but became disenchanted. He left and was briefly recruited by the Liberal Party before leaving it as well. He is completing his studies in Psychology and hopes to work in social work and foreign aid.

Rashida Khan

Rashida Khan, 24 owns and operates a cattle ranch with her partner Len Baker in the Northern Territory. She was traditionally not interested in politics, but became involved after the live export ban earlier this year. Rashida took part in of the “convoy of no confidence” to Canberra in August, addressing the crowd in front of Parliament House.

Nick Allardice

Nick Allardice, 24 is the Australian Country Director of Change.org organisation for global social change. Although Nick says he’s obsessed with politics, he’s not interested in becoming a politician. He feels that the most innovative and successful projects are coming from outside government.

Peter Reith

Peter Reith served in the Howard Government as Industrial Relations, Employment and Defence Minister before choosing not to contest the 2001 election. Last year, the Liberal Party tasked him with writing the review of the 2010 election defeat and providing recommendations for party reform. This year, he tried to win the national presidency of the Liberal Party on a platform of democratising the party structure, but lost by a single vote.

Bob Carr

Bob Carr was Premier of NSW for 10 years, from 1995 to 2005. Last year he was asked by the Labor Party to co-author a review into the party following its defeat at the 2010 state election. The plan suggests ways to reform the party structure, boost membership and increase grassroots engagement.

Wyatt Roy

Wyatt Roy is the youngest person ever elected to any Australian parliament, winning the Queensland electorate of Longman for the Liberal National Party at last year’s federal election. At 20 years old, he had to defer his university studies in order to campaign. Former Treasurer Peter Costello has said he would not be surprised if Roy was leading the Liberal Party in 2035, when Roy will be 45 years old.

Amanda Rishworth

Amanda Rishworth is from the Australian Labor Party and is the Federal Member for Kingston in South Australia. She was supported by her union as a young retail worker, and went on to become a union activist and official. Amanda then served as the National Young Labor President before running as a Labor candidate in the 2007 election.