It was a cool afternoon in Launceston's Princes Square, a welcome reprieve after the warmest January on record for the city - the warmest on record for the country, too - and the blazer-clad group of students appeared like any other.
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Nationally, the summer was characterised by weeks of fires in Tasmania, many ignited by dry lighting across the abnormally dry state, and flooding rains in Townsville. All of which has helped spur this group - and others like it across the country - into action.
Four students from four separate schools not simply hanging out after class, but carrying out final preparations for a rally to be held in the square on Friday.
Part of a global movement of student-led strikes borne out of a concern for their collective futures under a changing climate.
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"And the reason there are so many students doing this strike is because we're not old enough to vote, and by the time we are … it's going to be too late to do something about the climate," said Anna Roberts, a year 12 student at Launceston College and one of the four making up the cross-school organising group.
"Especially in Tasmania," added Joseph Savva, a grade 12 student from Launceston Church Grammar, "people have been voting for action against climate change and action to save our environment for decades … and it hasn't been working."
Annie Gulliver jumped in: "And they don't take us seriously individually either, so we're coming together as a solid group. Our [organising] group chat went from our group to about 40."
More than 500 have indicated an interest on the Facebook event page.
The School Strike 4 Climate movement found its way to Tasmania and Australia from Sweden, and a 15-year-old student named Greta Thunberg.
When about 1000 students left classrooms during school hours in November to gather on the lawns outside Hobart's Parliament House, they did so alongside peers in 27 other Australian cities and regional centres.
“We really want to see more change,” Amelie Hudspeth, a year nine student at Kingston High School, told The Examiner after the event. “It’s our future and it’s in their hands and it’s time to act now.”
Back in Princes Square, Gabrielle Dewsbury - a year 11 student from St Patricks and a member of the national school strike organising group - listed the movement's calls, formed out of long-running discussion among themselves and experts in climate science and energy.
No new coal mines in Australia was the first, including one proposed by Adani in North Queensland; the other involves a transition to 100 per cent renewable energy by 2030.
Across the state, climate policy isn't the only issue young people are keeping a keen eye on.
The still-to-be-called federal election is expected some time in May, after the budget is handed down.
Among a recent "climate solutions" pivot pitched by Prime Minister Scott Morrison - the effectiveness of which has been questioned by experts and commentators - the vote has been described as one between "envy and enterprise", aimed in part at Labor plans to wind back franking credits and negative gearing.
Labor leader Bill Shorten has described it as a "referendum on wages".
The recent Senate vote to pass new legislation enabling medical transfers of refugees on Manus Island and Nauru has escalated border security as another front.
A 2018 Lowy Institute Poll showed 66 per cent of Australians aged 18-44 believed Australia's openness to people from all over the world was essential, compared to 41 per cent of those over 45.
On climate change, the poll found 70 per cent of that younger age group saw global warming as a "serious and pressing problem". Just 49 per cent of those over 45 responded with the same concern.
Voter enrollment surged ahead of the 2017 marriage law postal survey, with two-thirds of the 65,274 people adding their names to the roll nationwide under 24 years of age. In Tasmania, this figure jumped to about 73 per cent.
Two panels held in Tasmania's North this week sought to draw this age bracket further into the political fold. Giving them space to take their questions directly to both those representing them and those seeking to.
Organised by the Youth Network of Tasmania - the state's peak body representing young people - the Panel with the Pollies events in Burnie and Launceston gave YNOT chief executive Tania Hunt hope.
“We had an amazing turn out Burnie and agreed to go overtime … I was so thrilled," Hunt said. "Hobart is shaping up to be a big one. I think they just really want to connect to the representatives."
Hunt said a wide range of topics were raised across the board, from a focus on mental health and transport in the North-West to the fallout of the banking royal commission in Launceston.
Climate change was a recurring theme, as were conversations around rights for LGBTIQ people, aslyum seekers, lowering the voting age, changing the date of Australia Day, opening up affordable housing and access to university.
"Young people have been telling us they have been frustrated - ignored, shut out, disillusioned," Hunt said.
The group in Princes Park echo this sentiment and, along with their peers, are trying to engage - with politicians and the broader community.
Gulliver said there is a video in the works, hoped to spark an online campaign to compliment the strike.
Dewsbury suggested the national group is planning more school strikes to follow. "You can't ignore social media and real life," she quipped.
And Friday's action will not be attended by students alone: parents and siblings will be heading along, grandparents too.
Schools have been broadly supportive. Another aim of the event is to build solidarity between and beyond the age group.
Looking at his phone, Savva suggested they go and help a group of others painting signs for the event nearby. The strike has brought students together across the city in a way none of the group have experienced before.
"It's been amazing to see how we all bond over this," he added.
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