We should be embarrassed by the conservative furore over a humble protest, not the feisty young people on Q&A who obviously care deeply about education, writes Clementine Ford.

We are often told that young people are guilty of a litany of social offences. They're not interested in politics, they're not interested in the world around them, they're not interested in feminism, they're not interested in working. To hear it described, you'd think that the youth of Australia are perpetual unhatched larvae, a corpulent mass of teeming sludge that does nothing and contributes nothing to society.

And yet, as the reaction to Monday night's episode of Q&A demonstrates, these same people are supposedly also disruptive, rude, insolent and too idealistic.

After a group of students blasted Education Minister Christopher Pyne with questions about deregulation of tertiary education (while the government floods money into the purchasing of unnecessary fighter jets), they broke into a loud and wonderfully obnoxious protest which only ceased when security escorted them from the premises.

They have since been inexplicably referred to as 'rioters' and shamed for the 'outrageous' way they handled themselves. Host Tony Jones warned them, 'Okay, you're not doing yourselves any favours' - as if the opinions of anyone over the age of 40 have ever been of interest to student activists or indeed deserve to be.

During my first year at university, I was very excited to be approached by a local political group on campus. They asked me if I would consider running with them in the upcoming student elections. As a swotty teacher's pet, naturally I was overjoyed. Student elections! University politics! A group of socially and politically engaged Young People who wanted me to be a part of them, despite the age difference!

"Yeah, that sounds great," I replied, trying to feign a look of casual-yet-sophisticated interest. "What does it involve?"

As it turns out, for a first year like myself, it involved a lot of grunt work and campaigning for other people. There were long Sundays spent painting other people's election banners and late nights spent guarding them from opposition groups, not to mention the combative strategies employed 'on the ground' during election week to try and encourage dispassionate students to vote. Every time we managed to march one of them into the booth holding one of our how-to-vote cards (which we were instructed to make sure was placed on top of whatever pile of similar how-tos they might be holding), we would scrawl a line on our arms in a running tally designed to a) show how successful we'd been that day and b) intimidate our opponents.

Those were heady times, the days of student politics. Although I very quickly shifted my on campus aspirations from student governance to student media, I remained invested in the battles of the day. Student unions and associations all around the country were engaged in regular protests against the Howard government, whose policies were undesirable to the vast majority of the student population (unfortunately, Young Liberals will always find their own distasteful place in student life). Brendan Nelson, who was at that point the education minister, was in favour of voluntary student unionism (VSU), the introduction of which would spell significant changes not only for the culture of university life but for the welfare of many of its more vulnerable members.

And so we protested.

We marched with banners, we chanted, we gathered in city squares and campus cloisters. We published articles outlining how such policies would have an adverse affect on students, and we warned against the further deregulation of university fees (remembering, always, that the politicians hell-bent on reserving education for the rich had themselves enjoyed entirely free tertiary education). We found our democratic voices and we organised. And, for a brief moment in time, we felt not only like we were part of something big and important, but that as a group we might actually be big enough and important enough to create real change. We wanted to participate in and influence the democratic process, not destroy it.

Fourteen years on, I can say that my politics have become more hardened in some ways and more temperate in others. But I reflect on those passionate years with nostalgia and happiness. Young people are supposed to be outraged by the world around them. They're supposed to threaten and challenge the status quo. They're supposed to make old people (and old conservatives especially) look at them and cluck their tongues, moaning about the Youth of Today. So it ever was and so it ever shall be.

So although I'm not surprised that a bunch of fuddy duddies would try to paint Monday night's Q&A protest as despicable (the ridiculous reference to it as 'a riot' demonstrates exactly how peaceful most protests are in Australia), it frustrates me that no attempt has been made to defend the actions of these students. These are feisty, passionate young Australians who, regardless of what people might think of their raucous methods, obviously care very deeply not only about the future of education in this country but how our federal government favours corporations over people.

After the broadcast resumed, Jones apologised, saying, "That is not what we want to happen on this program. That is not what democracy is all about and those students should understand that."

But of course, that's exactly what democracy is all about - freedom of assembly, freedom of political protest, and freedom of speech. Democracy certainly isn't about the ritual celebration of a largely white, largely wealthy, certainly privileged political commentariat being given repeated space and attention to hawk its own agenda while silencing the views of dissenting voices. I wasn't embarrassed on behalf of the students who fronted up to the live broadcast to unfurl their banners and chant against the deregulation of tertiary education; rather, I was embarrassed to watch as a show which purports to be a political weekly discussion exercised such a conservative response to one of the citizenry's most meaningful forms of political engagement - the humble protest.

For what is it that the students did so very wrong other than highlight the terrible esteem this federal government holds tertiary education and students in, and prevent for a matter of minutes the ongoing chatter of a man given opportunity to speak to the nation every day and whose own behaviour in the chambers of Parliament House has been reprehensible? As fellow guest Anna Burke said while laughing, "This reminds me of Question Time. I feel like I'm back in the House."

There is an old saying (falsely attributed to Winston Churchill) that if you're not a liberal at 25 then you have no heart, and if you're not a conservative when you're 35, then you have no brain. I doubt I'll ever make the crossover to conservative, and I'm content to be thought of as brainless by those who do. But I have watched as many of my contemporaries from those days of student elections and angry council meetings have gone on to become federal and state politicians with significant opportunities to influence the future of the Australian people. The idea that we should be suffocating political passion in the people who will one day be our leaders is ludicrous.

So, to all those students present and future who find themselves moved to protest, I urge you to go for it. The ability to peacefully protest is fundamental to Australia's democratic process, and the courage required to make people sit up and take notice is commendable. Shine shine shine, you beautiful creatures, and if anyone tells you to learn your place, tell them you already know it. It's at the frontlines of political change.

Clementine Ford is a freelance writer, broadcaster and public speaker based in Melbourne. Follow her on Twitter @clementine_ford. View her full profile here.