This research explores the constraints to youth participation through the mechanism of the National Youth Roundtable. In 1999 the National Youth Roundtable was established as the centrepiece of the Federal Government's `Voices of Youth' initiative, designed to go to the grass roots of the youth population and seek their participation on matters of policy development. This was to be the new interface between young people and the Australian government, replacing the peak body for youth affairs as a more effective participation mechanism.