Our past campaigns
South Australian & Tasmanian Local Council Elections
In late 2022, Run For It ran a campaign to support more young progressives to get elected to local government in South Australia and Tasmania. We recruited a powerful group of young community leaders and assisted them to run strategic campaigns to achieve better representation for their communities.
2022 Federal Election
Young people are switched on. Yet the revolving door of poor political leaders that don’t represent our contemporary society means that young people are more disengaged with democracy than ever before. So at the 2022 federal election, we tried to speak to as many young voters as possible and make sure they know their vote is valuable. We communicated politics to young people in new and innovative ways, mobilised them as a constituency, and in doing so, changed election results.
NSW Local Government Election
In 2021, Run For It supported 25 young people to run for local council. We took our key learnings from the Victorian local government campaign and expanded it to support more diverse young people to run for local government! Again, we supported candidates who were under 35, truly connected to their community and running on platforms centring climate, economic and social justice. In total, there are now nine young councillors elected in NSW with the support of Run For It, many of whom where first time candidates and will now be championing climate, social and economic justice in your local areas!
Victorian Local Government Election
In late 2020, Run For It led a campaign to support more young progressives to get elected to local government in Victoria. We supported 67 first time candidates and 72 local government candidates in total. All of which were under 35, truly connected to their community and running on platforms centring climate, economic and social justice.
Young candidates who were at the forefront of the climate crisis in coal mining areas ran for the first time. Young farmers ran, university students ran and a record number of people of colour ran. Over 20% of these young candidates got elected, meaning more young progressives were elected to Victorian local governments than ever before, and are now able to start creating more equal, healthy and just local communities across our state.
Queensland Local Government Election
During the 2019 Queensland Local Government Election, we set out to understand how young people feel about running for office and the barriers they face by conducting an in-depth research project.
We surveyed 30 young people in QLD in the lead-up to the local election about their views on running for office and the challenges they face. Along with this, we conducted 12 in-depth interviews with young people who actually ran as candidates.
The things these young voters and candidates told us were most needed were :
More practical support for young people running - Such as stipends to cover rent and bills and childcare so that those realities of everyday life are not barriers to entering politics.
More campaign support for young people running - Beating an established political class of elites is hard. Young people need connections to mentors, funders and networks of support to have a fighting chance.
Fair exposure for young people running - Young people need help raising their own profiles as young candidates running for office, to represent all, not just ‘youth’ issues.
Systems that allow young people to run - Major and Minor parties need to build infrastructure to help young people overcome stigma and feel like they can throw their hat in the ring.
Victorian Local Government Act 2019
In 2019, prior to the Victorian Local Government Act 2019 passing Victorian Parliament, we ran a campaign to support the amendment to lower the voting age to allow 16 to 17 year olds the option to vote in local elections and to remove the undemocratic mandating of single-member-wards.
As parts of this campaign, we :
Launched an online petition, letting members of the public and particularly young people show their support for our campaign. The petition sent a message to the government and shadow Minister for Youth and called on them to stand up for young people’s right to democracy.
Ran a digital campaign, using social media to educate and engage young people with the bill. We prioritised young peoples voices and shared their stories, along with tweeting at relevant MP’s and sharing our petition through digital channels.
Organised a group of young people to attend a Victorian parliament house and talk to the media about why they feel that they should be able to vote at 16. The students also had the opportunity to meet numerous supportive MP’s and sat in the parliamentary gallery to watch the Legislative Council debate.
