Make It 16 Co-Director involved in Youth Parliament

By Cerys Gibby, Youth Press Gallery, Youth Parliament 2025

Photo Caption: Thomas Brocherie, Youth MP

Note: Articles in this newsletter edition were produced by the Youth Press Gallery at various stages of the Youth Parliament 2025 programme. Accordingly, the content presented reflects the context and timing at the date of its original writing.

As politics become more prevalent in our daily lives, many young people across Aotearoa New Zealand are wanting to become more involved in politics. Burnside High School student Thomas Brocherie, co-director of Make It 16 and Youth MP for Lan Pham is one of those young people who turned desire into action. It’s making waves in his Ōtautahi / Christchurch community.

Brocherie’s interest in politics began with an inherent curiosity.

“I’m big into learning and academia. Knowing that I don’t know everything is, ironically, what motivates me to try to learn everything,” Brocherie says.

In searching for a moment that he became interested in politics, Brocherie lists the 2016 US Elections as a turning point for him, much like many politically active young Kiwis. In true debate team captain fashion, Brocherie explains that he’s “particularly interested in the way politicians use speech to persuade people, and the gap between what politicians say and what they actually do.”

2016 was the start, but in 2022 when the Supreme Court ruled that the Electoral Act of 1993 (which made the voting age 18) discriminated against people aged 16 and 17. This event launched Brocherie’s interest in political rights. When he was in Year 10, he wrote and published an opinion piece on the matter for Make It 16.

From then until June 2023, he became more involved, before being selected as one of two co-directors. Since his beginnings as co-director, the Make It 16 Bill has passed through its first reading in parliament.

“With General Elections next year, it’s an issue that we’re looking to make at the forefront of Aotearoa New Zealand politics.” His position as co-director of Make It 16 has already opened doors for Brocherie to engage with the wider Aotearoa New Zealand community.

Recently, he spoke at a voting workshop for the Henderson-Massey Youth Council in Auckland, in which he was able to engage with rangatahi (young people) about election processes and his position on the voting age. This is only the start of Make It 16’s engagement with other young people across the country, as the organisation prepares to educate new voters in the 2026 General Election.

With such a strong interest in politics and an active role in Make It 16, it only makes sense for Brocherie to try his hand at the campaign’s origin: Youth Parliament.

“I don’t think we as a country are doing enough, and I think we can do better. I look around, and I’m horrified at what the world has become, particularly in the political space,” he says.

In his role as a Youth MP, Brocherie wants to bring a simple, but often forgotten idea, to the spearhead of politics. That idea? Empathy.

“Empathy is a very easy word to say, but it’s not actually an easy thing to do. In the political space, people need to score points to stay in the job.” The scoring of “points” is often to the detriment of the people.”

“We are all people working under a system which people established. If we can establish this system that both benefits and harms us, we can work together to make positive change to maximise the benefits and minimise the harms.”

Teamwork has played a major role in Brocherie’s engagements with his local community. “The Youth MPs based in Ōtautahi / Christchurch have become quite a tight-knit group. Recently, we met with our Mayor Phil Mauger, to discuss how we can best represent Ōtautahi / Christchurch. I think there’s a massive benefit to representing a community as a cohort rather than just one person. I want to listen to people, not just passively hear them, but I am my own person with my own opinions, and it’s good to have other people to hold me accountable.”

Within his tenure as a Youth MP, Brocherie has been working in a Parliamentary Working Group with ten other Youth MPs from across the country on the issue of biodiversity credits. “There’s no way to sugarcoat it. Biodiversity is a huge part of the biggest and deepest long-term issue that the world faces, and that is climate change. Currently in the biodiversity sector, we’re not doing enough, and that needs to change.”

As a group, Brocherie and other Youth MPs have been exploring the potential for the biodiversity credits market to have a positive impact on the nature and wildlife of our country, taking in the opinions and experiences of the public.

Now that Building upon the Youth Parliament event that was held in July, Brocherie is excited to take his community engagement further, and bring all the work he’s done as a Youth MP to fruition.

“One thing I want people to know about me is that I will not sacrifice my principles for anything,” Brocherie says. At the end of the day, Brocherie’s passions lie with the people, in making Aotearoa New Zealand a better place for rangatahi and beyond.