Red Bend student Marty Davies recently spent three days at the National Schools Constitutional Convention in Canberra.
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From Tuesday, March 19 to Thursday, March 21, Marty was one of 100 17 and 18 year olds from around Australia who were informed on a certain topic of the Constitution.
"Every year there is a theme of a question and eventually we have to vote on it. The question this year was about decentralising funding from the federal government to the state governments," Marty said.
The group listened to six keynote speakers, visited Parliament House, the National Press Club of Australia, Government House and the National Art Museum.
They were able to interact with members of parliament, keynote speakers and Marty was even lucky enough to have a meeting with the Governor General.
"I gave the vote of thanks to the Governor General at Government House and I had a 15 minute meeting with the Governor General beforehand which was quite something," he said.
"Once he came into the room for our meeting I told him about the convention and about being from Parkes and Forbes.
"He said he has been to Red Bend and was thinking about the floods and everything that has happened and the importance of young people engaging in this kind of thing," Marty said.
At the end of the convention the 100 students decided on a 'No' vote.
"What I found interesting is almost everyone started off by yes we're going to support this and I think it was interesting that by the end when everyone had discussed it and we heard all the different points and considered everything that it came down to the detail of the question.
"They wrote a document to send to the Senate about our decision, so they heard what we were talking about. It wasn't just we said no, it was we recognise that we need change but we just didn't agree with the one they proposed."
Now in its 29th year, the convention is a part of the Australian Government Civics and Citizenship Education program for students in Years 11 and 12 studying legal studies, history and politics.
Each year the students are presented with real life issues that are facing our country.
They hear from experts, debate the main issues relating to the topic, vote in a mock referendum and the Deputy President of the Senate accepts the students document at the end of the convention.
"It was strange how official and formal it was," Marty said.
Marty submitted an essay before being chosen to attend the State Convention.
He was then one of the 30 NSW students chosen to attend the National Convention.
"I want to do Law and political science after school and this definitely affirmed that," Marty said.
"It was also good as it was a chance to create a bit of a network. Now I know kids my age from around Australia.
"I got a chance to talk to all of the professors and there was a point where we got to meet a few members of Parliament, it was really cool," Marty said.
