When 100 of New South Wales’ most promising young leaders stepped onto the historic floors of Parliament House in Macquarie Street for the 25th annual Y NSW Youth Parliament sitting week, one voice resonated with quiet conviction and historic milestone weight.
Representing the Hornsby electorate, proud Kamilaroi woman Alyssa Pinchbeck officially assumed office as the 2026 NSW Youth Premier – making her the first female Aboriginal Youth Premier in the program’s quarter-century history.
Key Takeaways
- Historic Appointment: Proud Kamilaroi woman Alyssa Pinchbeck becomes the first female Aboriginal Youth Premier in the Y NSW Youth Parliament's 25-year history.
- Youth Justice Focus: Transitioning from her 2025 role as Youth Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Pinchbeck is championing broader reforms to the juvenile justice framework.
- Suburban Community Roots: Raised in Hornsby, Pinchbeck stays grounded through local sports and advocacy, aiming to amplify grassroots youth voices across the electorate.
- Empowering Representation: She encourages young people from underrepresented communities to overcome self-doubt and step confidently into decision-making spaces.
For Pinchbeck, who grew up in Hornsby and attended local schools while serving as Senior Prefect and Wellbeing Prefect, the appointment is both a personal validation and a profound breakthrough for representation. Having honed her advocacy skills during her tenure as the 2025 Youth Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, she now leads the state’s flagship youth leadership program with a clear, grounded mission: giving back to the suburban community that raised her and opening doors for Indigenous youth across NSW.
Pinchbeck’s journey to the Premier’s chair is deeply tied to her local roots across Hornsby and the Upper North Shore. A passionate athlete, she actively plays netball locally at Hills Netball Association (rather than the neighboring KNA) and serves as a valued member of the Netball NSW Youth Advisory Group.
“Growing up in Hornsby, being able to represent them is a way that I’m able to give back to the community that’s given me everything from a very young age – all the opportunities within sporting, at school, leadership, and extracurriculars… I think it’s just being able to be grounded in community and actually having people to represent who I’m consistently talking to and getting advice and getting feedback from, and them being able to see that someone our age is actually out there representing our community and listening to what they have to say.”
After serving on the Aboriginal Affairs Committee in 2025 – where she co-authored a Bill addressing the overrepresentation of Indigenous youth in the criminal justice system – Pinchbeck shifted her focus this year to the Youth Justice portfolio. Her agenda combines a First Nations perspective with a broad, systemic critique of the entire juvenile justice framework.
“Initially I was drawn to the Youth Justice area in the Youth Parliament program last year where I was on the Aboriginal Affairs Committee… We looked into the overrepresentation of Indigenous youth in those spaces and what it looks like and how it can be changed. That was really what I focused on last year… and that’s why I’m in the Youth Justice portfolio this year, to look at it not only from an Indigenous perspective, but as a broader whole youth perspective and look at how the system is currently working, but also how it’s not working and how it needs to be changed.”
For Pinchbeck, the leadership platform is not about personal rhetoric, but about channeling the lived experiences of young people who feel excluded from decision-making spaces.
“This week I’ve really tried to focus on listening to people in my community and any people that I know that are young Indigenous people who are scared to be in advocacy spaces or maybe don’t have the opportunities to be in those advocacy spaces. And I’ve listened to them and their ideas on our bills or issues in our community that they think are the most forefront of our community… It kind of just looks like actually bringing those ideas to light. And not just me talking about what I have to say and what I think the biggest issues are, but bringing to light the issues that everyone – or the people in my community – think are the biggest issues.”
When asked what her advice would be to young people from North Sydney up to the Hawkesbury who doubt whether their voices matter, Pinchbeck’s message is clear: Just give it a try.
“I think my biggest advice is to just give it a try, because you don’t know if you’re going to succeed or if you’re going to like it or what’s going to happen if you don’t try. Like, I know personally when I was applying for the Youth Parliament program last year, I never thought in a million years that I would be chosen to represent my electorate, especially as it’s very populated… I never would have thought that I had belonged in this space and that I deserved a spot in this room or in these spaces.”
