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Youth parliament > Press gallery > Vote 16 By Danielle Duffield
Vote 16 By Danielle Duffield
Last month Green MP Sue Bradford announced her proposal to lower the voting age to 16.
 By Danielle Duffield
She proposes for the change to coincide with changes to make civics
education a compulsory part of the national education curriculum.
On the Green Party website, Bradford explains: “At sixteen, young
people can get married, have children, and be taxed. If we are
serious about trying to get young peoples’ voices into the public arena
and heard in places of power, they should be allowed to vote.”
Daniel Luoni, 17, Youth MP for Bill English, agrees with Sue
Bradford. He feels that sixteen and seventeen year olds are as
capable as they will ever be of making informed political decisions.
“As I look around the chamber, I see the representation of New Zealand
youth and they are a bright and ambitious bunch.” While Luoni
recognizes that some sixteen and seventeen year olds aren’t perhaps
knowledgeable enough to vote, he feels that “the same is true of the
entire population.”
Like Bradford, Luoni also sees a large hypocrisy in disallowing sixteen
and seventeen year olds to vote. “They still believe we are mature
enough to pay the salaries of those who tell them what to do via
taxes. They still believe we can lie down our lives in war,” he
explains.
Vinnie Wylie, 18, MP for Charles Chauvel, disagrees however. After
weighing up evidence, Wiley decided that sixteen was not a suitable
age. Well he acknowledges that while many thirty-year-olds are no more
political than sixteen year olds, he reasons that “You have to draw the
line somewhere. And 18 seems to be an appropriate line to draw it at.”
To find out more about this proposed legislation change, view the full copy of Bradford’s bill at http://www.greens.org.nz/searchdocs/other10945.html
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