I believe that the voting age, at least in Aotearoa/New Zealand should be lowered to the age of 16. Why? Well I have a few reasons I think that the voting age should be lowered to 16, but be warned, my political views come into play in this explaination.

My class had this as a topic for a debate, and it made me think a bit more about it recently. The people who believed 16 year olds aren’t responsible enough to vote, were countered by the fact that actually, 18 year olds are barely more responsable than that. Think about it this way, 16 year olds already have the right to be paid minimum wage, they can drive a car, and drop out of highschool. They are also held accountable by law for any crime. So why shouldn’t they be given the political responsability to be included in democratic discision of their country?

Most people also say that most sixteen year olds are informed enough to make democratic discisions that could impact the whole country, but this is simply not true. I know some teens that woukd vote in every election if they could! So limiting the opertunities of a whole age group is a bit unreasonable.

Finally, conisdering the three-headed taniwha of a coalition that was voted in by the general puplic of New Zealand, maybe we do need a fresh prospective and sooner rather than later.

“The current government is trying to erase Māori. The purpose of the hīkoi is to raise awareness, to stand up and protect Te Tiriti o Waitangi. They’re trying to reduce the capacity for Māori to be Māori, that’s what it comes down to.”

This may be an assumption but I’d say that kids are better at creative solutions than adults, depending on their line of work. I think that if the voting age was lowered to sixteen it would have to be on a trial basis but so what? If it doesn’t work, then we go onto the next thing, and it’s not the end of the world. What is the end of the world, is with people like the current NZ government are practicing culurual erasure.