I've been going to the Fabians meetings for the best part of a year, and I too was at the Voyage presentation in Wellington. I avoided youth/university politics because almost everyone involved has a very specialised focus on issues and hasn't the life experience to formulate and broad, grounded view of the issues affecting this country. Attending the Fabians meeting has given me a far better understanding of the issues than anything I learnt at university, let alone in university political groups.

With that said, the Voyage presentation was an excellent event. While there were a few younger people there, the majority in attendance were of the older persuasion.

Something that irks me is the generational gap that seems to exist between the majority of old Labour supporters (those not in Parliament), and younger Leftists.

There are Young Labour members coming through, but they mostly have very little understanding of issues outside of minority rights, the environment and whatever the MPs are saying in Parliament.

The fact is that Labour is being outflanked by the Greens on these issues anyway, but Labour are failing to connect with voters on issues that really affect people; cost of living, wages, housing, rural economic development etc.

There needs to be some serious effort made to bring together all factions of the Labour Party, but I highly doubt that is possible under the current leadership.