A huge standing ovation to the amazing rangatahi for fighting and winning to lower voting age to 16…
…congratulations to their tenacity and refusal to back down!
These young people have done NZ a huge service in expanding the universal franchise of democracy.
Taxation without representation is an obscenity – most 16 year olds have part time jobs, they pay tax & they should have a say because the climate crisis impacts them most and their hopes & dreams need to be reflected in society.
Political Parties don’t give two shits about the views of young people because young people don’t vote, lowering the voting age to 16 would force those politicians to listen to those new voting voices.
This is about expanding the Universal franchise at a a time when fewer people are choosing to participate, early voting creates life long voters and believers in the democratic process.
I’m not interested in the ‘but 16yr olds are too immature to vote’ – I know plenty of 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 and 70yr olds who are too immature to vote.
Lowering the voting age to 16 should be part of the first 100 days of a new Government.
Well done rangatahi!
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Well done to the kids for doing this, good to see them standing up.
I dont think you will have to worry too much about this being in their first 100 days. I suspect they will try and rush it through in this term’s agenda so they can rake in more potential voters.
We all know it will mean more votes for Labour, the schools are indoctrinating kids and they all believe Jacinda is a saint, white people can never experience racism yadda yadda yadda.
And just in case, there was any doubt about what will motivate them to vote Labour if their principles dont do it, the ‘First Year Free’ will do so. At 16, many are planning what they will be doing for study at 18. A vote for National means $8K in first year fees while a vote for Labour means $0. If I was cynical, I might even imagine the ‘Make it 16’ crew had exactly this in mind when they went to bat.
And though I agree if they pay tax, they should get a vote. I would mention back in the 70’s when most people left school at 15 or 16 and went straight into work or subsidised training mixed with employment, they didnt get the vote either and the numbers in employment were far greater than now, in those days less than 30% went to Uni.
not neccessaryly more votes for lab ongoing, immigrants show pecious little ‘gratitude’ and as cultural conservatives vote right…
1st year free is another 1/2 arsed policy…either education is free or it isn’t, putting off the pain till yr 2 helps no one.
Agreed Yuri. 1st year free is a truly awful idea, intended to prop up the current dysfunctional funding model. Abolish tuition fees, set strict academic entry requirements, boot out anyone who fails 3 papers.
yup pope fact is and uncomfortable as it is, not everyone is qualified/suited to tertiary education…give the poor but smart a chance and fuck off the clueless offspring of the middle class doing arts degrees.
And you’d think that sort of reform would be a high priority for a supposedly left-wing government, wouldn’t you?
pope you’re the only one in the room who supposes LINO is left
Why should people working in supermarkets subsidize lawyers and doctors in training?
Aside from that, having had taught at University I can attest that half of them shouldn’t be allowed on campus without a bucket and mop in their hands.
I’d rather see the all subsidises be removed to weed out these wastrels or even better, have meaningful entry requirements which would cull them out.
What a knob. Don’t Nats and Act have young people in their fold. If they don’t it tells a story doesn’t it
So National pick up the over 60s vote yet there isn’t a generational problem with that. And yes you are obviously being cynical and you know it but let’s be very clear, when voting, one votes on what best benefits them individually( if you are right leaning). Those on the left vote for inclusion. Even the Make it 16 advocate said it was about their generation wanting to live in a sustainable climate and action is needed. In other words they want a world that benefits everyone, not just the Tuis of this world.
“not just the Tuis of this world”
Meaning?
I hope those angels that vote left are not disappointed with this Labour government as they support the wealthy parents (those earning up to $108000 )with money to help child care while crying poverty in so many other areas that would help the real poor .
Only the Greens are in favour of the proposed change as they think most of the young are more likely to vote for them than the other 4 main stream parties. If they are still at school how can they evaluate life outside of that domain. What is the rush to be worse about voting they have a whole life ahead of them.
The rush is to show the dirty Natzos the door before they get another chance to negatively affect said 16-18 year old’s lives!
Due to internet coverage kids, pre teens, and teens have access to an incredible amount of information and culture.
There was a time when a whole gender was excluded from voting whatever their age on similar grounds of competency. It is the 21st century, and we need to move promptly to encourage a lot more people to engage in political participation.
“an incredible amount of information and culture.”
Do you mean an incredible amount of mis and dis information through unregulated social media?
No thanks.
Well RosieLee being misinformed is not the exclusive domain of the young by any stretch. As the postmortem of the recent US elections is proving. The covid death rate of Republicans over 65 was double that of the democrats overall and that along with the youth and the female vote is what made it so close.
Look at all our fruit cakes like that former TV presenter, and that evil b*tch lawyer. They are not young by any stretch
I do not think It will not pass in parliment but if it did it would not be in time for the next election and that is the one National will win.
I’m 67 & have noticed that many nominal adults brains never fully develop…often reverting backwards again in their dotage
Most senior citizens have earned the right to vote, whether by paying taxes for 40+ years, or providing goods and services to enrich this country. Who are we to decide at what age voting rights are retracted.
My message to 16 year olds, just focus on achieving 100% attendance at school, focus on achieving high grades, plan & focus on your own future career, and stay away from trouble I.e drugs, ram raids and unprotected sex.
Focus on what you want to be when you grow up. This country will be most thankful if you just do that.
There is only a 2 year wait before you will be eligible to vote for rest of your life.
Actually that is incorrect. My son was 17 last election and will be 23 next election, the first time he will be eligible to vote. He has worked and paid taxes since he was 15, but under current legislation, was not considered old enough to vote. Old enough to pay taxes but not old enough to participate in the democratic process of how his tax paid is spent. He’s not a slave and his situation is not unique.
Sinic, When the elections happen every 3 years, how can your son be 17 at last election in 2020, and 23 at the next one.
Secondly, your son paying tax at age 15 is not unique as you said. There are children at age 14 who are paying tax from their part time jobs. Why stop at 14, if parents have opened bank accounts for their babies, they are also paying tax on interest earned.
Hence based on the tax argument one could argue that there should be no minimum age for voting. After all if you paid tax, and didn’t get chance to vote, you are a slave.
Sinic, even if you were a paper boy or girl at 10 John Key was taxing you.
Fair enough Benny, I got my numbers wrong and son did vote last election, I had forgotten. The point was however that many young people in the 16-17 age range are living adult lives and contributing to society so they should be entitled to vote if they want too. Their generation is unique and their perspective is interesting. Earning interest on a bank account is a passive “activity” BTW – any moron can achieve that – working / labouring and paying EMP taxes etc should entitle one to vote, IMO
Nice self-awareness
Arrrh no.Its a hospital pass back to the house of representatives! MP’s.
It could stay at 18 or move to 17 or 16 or another visit to the Supreme Court.
Lets make it 45 instead!
Meh, 45, 15 – what difference does it make? We will get a neo liberal govt who doesnt give a stuff.
That is what we already have now Fantail.
A Pyrrhic victory for the Green infused, impressionable, starry eyed youngsters.
A better proposition is to mandate voters to having an IQ above room temperature before being allowed within a mile of a voting paper.
Reading age might be a more practical criterion.
What they read & having the discernment to understand it is more important than reading alone.
Clearly a bunch of teenagers haven’t done this themselves. Who are the adults behind this? Cui bono?
The Greens Rusty.
They’re all clones.
Bob the drongo.
Make voting mandatory.
Yes agree! Make it immediate. This bullshit of all the privileges but no responsibilities – doesn’t work.
Agree.
And that’s what happens when woke judges are appointed to the Supreme Court.
Of all the silly ideas paraded on this site, I think this one gets the dunce cap. 16 yr-olds know an awful lot less than they think they do.
This issue always generates more heat than light; I remember when many of the same arguments were used to debate for & against lowering the voting age to 18 (which was my first voting election). The Vietnam war draft & protests had also raised our democratic consciousness.
People need to get the basic democratic principles right first & then the rest will follow.
eg:
– no taxation without representation.
– are you old enough to be in a relationship/married & have a child
You presumably being the “light”, RW?
I’m unimpressed by your casuistic justification for skewing the electorate wokeward. Funnily enough, most 16 yr olds are impressionable and easily manipulated by demagogues. Hitler Youth? Mao’s Red Guards?
Pensioners have worked and paid taxes and contributed to families and society all their lives. 16 year olds haven’t.
So if the argument is that 16 and 17 year d aren’t old enough,perhaps pensioners are past it cognitively?
Thats a huge generalisation. Some will have paid stuff all tax and sure others paid tax, but they got a whole lot more free stuff than people do today
But as generalizations go, it’s still pretty accurate.
Actually, a comment on Checkpoint tonight (maybe by Graeme Edgeler) said that the government argument to the Supreme Court was to keep the status quo. However, the government did not give any reasons WHY the status quo should remain.
Under the Bill of Rights, 16 is the age given for adult rights, but like all BORA rights this right can be withheld if they are good reasons for it. I think it was Edgeler who then said that the law could continue to oppose 16 year olds having the right to buy alcohol or cigarettes because there is research showing why they shouldn’t.
100% Pope
Many 16 year olds are more mature than over 60 year Olds. Fact.
prove it if it’s a FACT sinic, what you mean is it’s an OPINION.
Sinic doesn’t do facts.
90! 90 votes in Parliament is what is needed.
I think the kids need to protest by glueing themselves to Parliament for a month or two or until the vote is taken in the House!
I like that – and while they’re there they can protest the right to be elected as MP’s as well…..
Nothing has been won. The Judge didn’t change the Electoral Act.
All this is is a massive flex by a judicial activist.
Woo-hoo! Win Win! Congrats Make it 16 – and well done! You deserve to vote, those that want to, in my opinion
… if pensioners can, you should too…
Pensioners have worked and paid taxes and contributed to families and society all their lives. 16 year olds haven’t.
No, actually many have never worked a day in their lives. Those that have, so what Rosie Lee? My generation and my kids generation now pay their pension. My kids generation deserve to vote on that.
Gosh that’s horrible.
no representation without taxation….
Just a reminder that electoral law changes require 75% of Parliament to vote for it…to put it simply, it ain’t going to happen.
We know why the greens are so excited, heck even I was a socialist when I was 16, then I grew up
You did? I call bullshit…
Simply, I learnt nothing is free, and I don’t have a ‘right’ to anything, and I have to actually earn it.
Crazy concept I know!
If nothing is free why do the wealthy have tax havens and vote right?
Because governments all over the world allow for legal loopholes. Non of these guys do anything that is not legal, keep that in mind.
Depending on your age you probably got more free stuff when you were younger or didn’t need a huge f*cking loan to get an education beyond high school.
I took a huge fu$king loan to do my tertiary education, but I did it something that I knew I could probably make money out of, not gender studies. So I paid it off quickly.
Great but how much better off would you be now if that tertiary education was free like Pullya Benefit?
BG the Left think everything is free.
Read the TDB.
And boy, Jacinda couldn’t wait to announce a MAJOR LEGISLATION CHANGE!!!!!! She must have got a headsup a while ago to prepare that MAAAAAAAJOR announcement.
More performative politics, make a big song and dance about something that will be shot down at the first vote, serves as a great distraction from the lack of any real performance on the issues that matter to most New Zealanders. Maybe she could run a flag / republic referendum while she’s at it?
MAAAAAAAJOR announcement! Luxon changes his mind on tax, again, again and again!
He must have got a heads up piece.
Show me a person that never changed their mind and I’ll show you a failure.
…Trump…Xi Jinping…Putin…
Oh, wait…not 16yo voters
what’s a rangitahi?
Sorry but I don’t ride the woke train
I do know someone called rangi though
yeah – we all know a straight edge is a tool.
Thing is to get this through Labour need National’s support and they don’t have it.
Looking forward to seeing those ramgithai smiles being turned upside down hopefully some tears too 🙂
Sadist!
What an immature comment and I bet you’re older than 16 xstraight.
It should be like being able to drive at age 16: If they pass a civics test, they can vote.
Hey Andrew, that might rule out a good many 18+
This needs to be put to a referendum or this is not democratic
Reduce age for maturity and adulthood to 16. Make the kids full adults by 16. Is this not the intend?
Well if Coward Kraut and Bob the last can vote, given their immaturity, I’d advocate for even 12 year olds to vote.
newborns should vote, their parents could do that for them.
See Bob the first comment below for evidence..
Agree Bert! 12 is fine since you are allowed to drive a car through a shop window and terrorise the neighborhood. It’s a legitimate activity now ad there is no consequence. So yes, let lower the vote to 12.
The word is “and” not ad. This is why you should not be voting Coward Kraut until you have the literacy skills of a 5 year old.
Even the dear old DomPost are waking up to inevitable change for the good…
Front page story: ‘Their cause for celebration’ and a photo of five young women who lobbied to lower the voting age to 16;
Back page headline: ‘Kiwi women rule the world’
King Canute couldn’t do it nor can the male, pale, and stale neo-lib stumbling, bumbling NatActs.
Get with it guys. Face reality and welcome change. M,P & S have ruled us for far too long.
Time to move over and move on before it’s too late, all you Canutes out there!
Moneyed interests have ruled over us far too long and will continue to do so, regardless of who they place as front people for the all singing and all dancing Democracy stage show or who they allow in the audience participation event.
Your pale, male & stale comment is just distraction & division. We currently have a youngish female PM, fronting a diverse collection of clowns, but the show is still Neo-liberalism (running since 1984) and the moneyed elite (regardless of race or gender) still call the shots.
So well put, RS.
Even the dear old DomPost are waking up to inevitable change for the good…
Front page story: ‘Their cause for celebration’ and a photo of five young women who lobbied to lower the voting age to 16;
Back page headline: ‘Kiwi women rule the world’
King Canute couldn’t do it nor can the male, pale, and stale neo-lib stumbling, bumbling NatActs.
Get with it guys. Face reality and welcome change. M,P & S have ruled us for far too long.
Time to move over and move on before it’s too late, all you Canutes out there!
See Bob the first pale, stale, male comment below…
Individual critical thinking is missing.
Lower voting age if you’re left wing don’t lower voting age if you’re right wing.
It that simple I think.
Nah. This is no good. As a lawyer this is the kind of judgement whose reasoning is not 100% solid, and that will – not could – undermine the credibility of the Courts in the eyes of very many. It could even set off an explicit politicisation of the Courts, which would be a disaster.
And that’s even before the substance of the issue.
I think it’s a cunning plan to recruit and enlist more cannonfodder to be sent to the front lines in the Ukraine. So I’m all for it if the muddle class neofascist kids get sent there too. Because the poor brown kids b will be the first ones to go.
There’s only a very small number of 16 year olds who give a toss about it and they’re activist types who scream ‘climate change’ whenever it rains. They’re the last people who deserve the right to vote. Kids should be kids and shouldn’t rush to join the adult world – they have plenty of time to ‘grow up’ and vote.
I’m a little sceptical about a 16 year old being fully equipped in a psychological sense to vote. In my opinion very few of that age whom I know are sufficiently mature enough to be considered adult. I dont give a rats about the politics here, its an area where I’d defer to psychologist who study developmental stages. Where’s Piaget when you need him?
Voting at 16 does this extend to the state considering 16 year olds to be adults and not minors in all areas of life? 16 year olds signing commercial contracts. 16 year olds in pubs. 16 year olds consenting to gender reassignment sugery. 16 year olds working in massage parlours. 16 year olds being sent to war. 16 year olds tried and sentenced as adults and sent to adult prisons. Are 16 year olds ready for some unintended consequences.
Make it 12!
Yours
Bert
I’m going to vote Labour for the first time in a long time just to watch people lose their minds at a third term – lol