Independent views By Brendan Horan

I wonder where we are going as a nation and what is important to us. I asked this question of some university students last week. I've often wondered if we tend to funnel fresh adults into university with no direction, loading them with debt – before they know what they want. I read somewhere one in every three university students change their study direction in their second year.

The students I talked with said they need pathways for young people to own a home, as they're currently priced out of the market. They need coding in schools, learning to make their own operating systems, and learning to protect their privacy as a nation and as citizens. Nobody, they said, represents university students in Parliament, and they're a youth of great ideas, wanting to be equals, and wanting to be represented.

They also said we need to address underemployment. There is work, but much of it offers little pay with inconsistent hours. Manufacturing, as we know it, will be turned on its head, thousands of jobs will be lost, but thousands of new jobs will also be created. We must plan for children, young people, and the existing workforces, to give them skills and competencies, so we as a nation can compete in the new world of the industrial internet; the internet of everyone and everything, it is coming.

They also said to me as young people and teenagers they're not taught anything about the political process, nor do they feel they're able to have an effect. Most of all, they want a forum through which they can express their well-informed views, and to feel as though they can effect change by voicing their opinions.

They asked me to note it is discouraging when our Government ignores referendum outcomes. Plato said one of the penalties for not taking an interest in politics is you end up being governed by your inferiors.

I've got great news for those students. There is a fresh, new breeze on the political landscape currently under formation, the New Zealand Independent Coalition. It is a collective of people who recognise we need to plan for our future; and that the future is ours for owning.

Nobody is going to give it us; we have to plan and make it ourselves. If we plan it correctly, it can be magnificent. We need to value young people and take them with us.

The NZ Independent Coalition promises inclusive democracy, to represent the electorate and to include the electorate in the decision-making process through online referendum and throughout the political term.

The electorate will be empowered to direct how their MP votes on bills before the House of parliament. There will be no party politics, no party line voting. Instead, it will be about local needs and priorities.

If you would like to discuss this or any other issues please contact me. Facebook.com/Brendan.horan.336 twitter.com/brendanhoran or Phone Brendan on 574 0253.