My generation needs to step up and take responsibility for our future, or we'll just be the next complainers in line.

But that doesn't mean we don't worry about our future. It would be easy to be angry about the legacy of today's political leaders. To rage against the baby boomers and their children for reaping the bounty. But, that would only draw us into this same, unproductive cycle of negativity.

Yet even in the face of such profound change, many Australians my age can't even imagine politics could be for them. There's no shortage of other distractions; on the one hand we've got an endless personalised media stream coming at us, on the other we've got casualised jobs that defeat any effort to establish a routine and keep us feeling constantly insecure. Many young people have neither time nor inclination for reflection. In fact, many young people manage to avoid political news altogether.

Young people today face a world that will be completely alien to anything that has come before us; traditional models of employment are collapsing, house prices are so high that the suburban white picket fence will remain out of reach until we are well into our 40s (or perhaps forever) and, most importantly, the earth is heating up.

That means looking at our political system for all it promises, not for what it currently is.

We have descended into a juvenile battle of wills that pits one side against the other constantly, regardless of the policy or issue on the table. It's become more important to discredit the other side (or your own party leader) than to get anything done. To use a sporting metaphor, it's as though we're playing a purely defensive game and no one has the courage to break free and run with the ball. This is not a political culture that engenders innovation or progress.

At the same time, our politicians' personal lives also seem to have become fair game. I think the vitriolic attacks on our first female Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, were a tipping point. This isn't to say politicians shouldn't be constantly scrutinised or held to a higher standard of conduct than the rest of us. They are elected to represent the public, so they must be trustworthy. The recent slew of ICAC investigations into politicians' corrupt conduct are evidence enough of this need. But proper scrutiny is quite different from constant mudslinging.

This cynicism is overlaid by a consumer culture of instant gratification. Our economy has been driven by in-built obsolescence for some time now; when there is always a new model on the horizon, what we have in our hands needs only keep us satisfied until we make our next purchase. The same could be said for politicians or even party leaders. Despite much fine-sounding rhetoric, policy is generally leveraged to best position the incumbent for the next election cycle. We seem so blinkered by our immediate wants that we are overlooking our future needs.

Young people can offer both ideas for change to the political dialogue and the energy to get things done. We have grown up with instant global communication; we are comfortable working outside traditional models and we understand effective new pathways. We use crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter to finance start-ups, we sell products directly to target markets through niche websites like Etsy, and we create virtual protests through Facebook and Twitter. Young people can provide the bridge we need to close the intergenerational communication gap in politics and, in doing so, re-engage our peers.