Electoral (Lowering Voting Age for Local Elections and Polls) Legislation Bill

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I present a legislative statement on the Electoral (Lowering Voting Age for Local Elections and Polls) Legislation Bill.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.

Hon KIERAN McANULTY: I move, That the Electoral (Lowering Voting Age for Local Elections and Polls) Legislation Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Justice Committee to consider the bill.

In November last year, the Supreme Court granted a declaration of inconsistency with the Electoral Act and the Local Electoral Act. The court declared that the minimum voting age of 18 years was inconsistent with section 19 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act: the right to be free from discrimination on the basis of age. This case was brought to the court by the youth advocacy group Make It 16. I would like to acknowledge this group for their effort and determination to stand up and be the voice of young people in the court proceedings.

In March this year, the Prime Minister confirmed that the Government would introduce legislation this term to lower the voting age for local elections to 16 years of age, and the Government has done just that. This bill amends the Local Electoral Act to give more young people a voice in who represents them and their communities. It gives them the ability to vote or to stand as a candidate but, more than that, it gives them the opportunity to take a greater part in our local democratic system. To do this, the bill will reduce the minimum voting age from 18 to 16 for local elections.

The bill will create a new category of youth electors in the Local Electoral Act. It will also establish a youth electoral roll, which will be maintained by the Electoral Commission to the same high standards of security and integrity as the parliamentary roll. In New Zealand, all voters who are New Zealand citizens can stand as candidates in local elections, so 16- and 17-year-olds will be able to do this too, and, as always, voters will be able to decide who is best to represent them and their communities.

The bill does make one distinction: for participating in elections under the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act. These are elections for licensing trusts and community trusts that are included in the triennial elections. In this case, the Government has decided to keep the age at 18 for standing as a candidate or voting in these elections. This lines up with the alcohol purchasing age of 18.

The bill is an answer to a call that has gone on for too long. We have been told time and time again by our young people that they deserve to vote and represent the communities they live in, and have a voice in decisions that will have long-term consequences for them. They’ve made submissions to select committee inquiries, lodged petitions to Parliament, organised protests, and appeared outside this very building. On their fight to vote, they went all the way to our highest court. As we all know, the Make It 16 group won their case in the Supreme Court. The court said that the age discrimination in the Local Electoral Act had not been justified.

There has been, and may continue to be, criticism that young people are not mature enough to vote. I do not agree. In its report to the High Court, the Office of the Children’s Commissioner cited a 2019 study that people in their mid-teens are generally able to make deliberate decisions comparable to voting. From this study, the commissioner reported that when situations call for deliberation in the absence of high levels of emotion such as voting, the ability of an individual to reason and consider alternative courses of action reaches adult levels during the mid-teen years.

The Justice Committee recently completed an inquiry into the Supreme Court’s declaration of inconsistency. The committee recommended by majority that legislation should be introduced to lower the voting age for local elections. The majority on the committee noted that the arguments they found persuasive included that 16- and 17-year-olds are likely to be better connected to their communities than 18-, 19-, and 20-year-olds, who often leave home for work or study opportunities; that those who begin voting as soon as they are eligible are more likely to maintain a lifelong habit of voting; and that the evidence shows that when it comes to voting, 16- and 17-year-olds are capable of deliberating, reasoning, and considering options at adult levels.

We already have young people with passion, purpose, and an eagerness to lead that are out and active within their communities. They see opportunities for positive change, a chance for something different—something better.

One may ask why we aren’t looking at lowering the voting age for parliamentary elections as well. While the Government is required to respond to the court’s declaration, as the Prime Minister has said before, we can’t justify work on a bill that we know will not get the support it needs. It’s entrenched, so it needs 75 percent majority support in the House to pass. We know we would not get that level of support in this Parliament, so instead we’re focusing on local elections as part of our response to the court’s declaration.

This is not a simple bill. Changing the minimum voting age for local elections alone is complex. As it currently stands, the Local Electoral Act uses the parliamentary roll as the basis for voter eligibility. It essentially piggybacks off the Electoral Act. With such complexity, there is room for change and improvements, if needed. I look forward to and welcome submissions on these during the full select committee phase. I know we have some great minds across New Zealand, and we will certainly have some passionate young people that should be heard.

The bill has a commencement date of 1 March 2028, in time for the 2028 local elections. I know that some will be disappointed that this change cannot be implemented sooner. Local electoral changes are always challenging to implement, because they need to fit within two electoral cycles: local and parliamentary. That’s particularly the case for this bill, because the bulk of the implementation responsibility falls to the Electoral Commission. The complexity of the system changes needed for a local elections - only model and the timing of the electoral cycle means that the Electoral Commission would not be able to design and implement system changes in time for the 2025 local elections, but the bill also includes the ability to bring the commencement date forward by up to a year if the changes can be put in place earlier. We have much work to do. But I am confident that we can work to address the issue of human rights raised in the court’s declaration.

In conclusion, the Government was required to respond to the Supreme Court’s declaration of inconsistency. This bill forms part of that response. It will go through a full select committee process, where New Zealanders will have the opportunity to have their say. The question of allowing 16- and 17-year-olds to participate in local elections will be for the next Parliament to determine, and I look forward to that discussion. But for the time being, I commend this bill to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Here we are; we’re in the final week of this Parliament sitting in this Chamber. We’re about to go to the election. We’ve got a Government that’s been in power for six years, and in the final week, what are they doing? They’re worried about lowering the voting age in local body elections, so that tells you what you need to know about the headspace of this Government and where its priorities lie.

We don’t agree with this bill and we won’t be supporting it—not because we’ve got anything against 16- and 17-year-olds. We love 16- and 17-year-olds and we want them to thrive and do the best, but, ultimately, we have an 18-year-old voting age and we have for a very long time now, and the argument for changing it is based on some very weak foundations. One is that we’ve had this declaration of inconsistency from the Supreme Court which we’ve just debated, and the Supreme Court said that the voting age at 18 breached the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act in relation to discriminating against 16- and 17-year-olds, and that that discrimination had not been justified.

Now, most people looking at that will say, “Oh, it’s an unjustified breach of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act—isn’t that a terrible thing?” But that’s not exactly what they meant. What they meant is that it simply had not been justified, because the Crown, on the side of the Government when it was arguing the case, did not make the case. The Crown simply said, “Actually, we don’t think it’s anything for the courts to decide. Parliament decides the voting age, and we’re not going to argue that point.” So the Supreme Court didn’t say that the voting age of 18 couldn’t be justified; it simply said that it hadn’t been justified by the Government of the day.

Now, we firmly believe it could be justified and it is justified, simply by the fact that the line has to be drawn somewhere, and the line of 16-year-olds’ rights and 18-year-olds’ rights and 20yearolds’ rights varies across the spectrum. It’s made quite explicit in this bill, actually, because when we come to the local council voting rules where they want to reduce the voting age to 16, they also exclude voting on local alcohol bills, because the alcohol age is 18, and that is discriminating against 16- and 17-year-olds not being able to buy alcohol, but we do that because Parliament and society as a whole, for a very long time, has decided that’s the appropriate age.

So there are lines to be drawn. You can argue about it. There will be some 16-year-olds who will be fantastically interested in politics and fully equipped. I have no criticisms of the ability of some 16-year-olds to vote, but you’ve got to draw the line somewhere, and that’s for Parliament to decide, and that’s perfectly appropriate. So if we’ve got a voting age of 18 for general elections, I can’t see any logic in changing the voting age for local elections, because as the Minister himself has pointed out, that very much complicates the system and creates a vast and expensive apparatus being developed specifically for local elections.

One of the arguments that’s sort of put forward is that at local elections we’ve got a problem with not enough people turning out to vote and if we get a few 16- and 17-year-old voters, we might get a few more people voting. Well, I think that’s a very long bow, and I have a very simple view in terms of voter turnout: it is the job of candidates to persuade people to come out and vote for them—nobody else. That’s right—if you can’t get anybody to come out and vote for you, it’s not anybody else’s fault but your own. So if you’re standing for Parliament, that’s what you’ve got to do. You’ve got to get out and persuade people to vote, and if you’re standing for a local council or a local board, it’s your job to get out there and persuade people to vote for you—that’s your job. So changing the voting age is not going to fix it in particular.

My second objection to all this is around the Government’s priorities and what it says of the Government’s priorities, because this is broadly in the justice space. It also integrates with the local government space. And the point I’ve been making is: one week, the final week of Parliament, when in the broader justice sector, we’ve got real problems with violent crime. We’ve got real problems with youth crime, and the ram-raiders running amok up and down the country, terrorising the retail sector and being of great concern to people.

Thirdly, you’ve got very long delays to justice wherever you look, and people’s lives have been on hold for years. There are real, massive challenges, and instead of focusing on that, effectively, this Government wants to have all these officials working away on the complicated arrangements in electoral law and spending the next few months trying to figure out how to effectively reduce the voting age and hearing the thousands of submissions. The reality is that every Government has to work out what its priorities are, because you cannot do everything, and so you’ve got to work out what your priorities are. If this is their priority, what I would say to you is that they’ve got their priorities wrong. They need to be focused on the things that people really worry about. I’m a very hard-working candidate in Epsom at the moment and I go out doorknocking all the time, and when I’m at those doors and I knock, there are two things that people raise time and time again. They say, “We’re worried about the cost of living and we’re worried about the law and order.” I’ve never knocked on any door where anyone says, “The number one issue for me is that we’ve got to reduce the voting age to 16.” I haven’t heard it—I haven’t heard it.

So that’s what we need to be focused on, and this is a Government that has always had very strange priorities, like I say, in the justice sector around electoral law. It’s on violent crime, it’s on youth crime, it’s around extending the courts, and if you want to get into electoral law, the one useful thing the Government could do is repeal its own Act which moved away from equal voting rights. If you’re worried about human rights and you’re worried about the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, removing the basic right of New Zealanders to have equal voting rights and an equal say in who governs them has been taken away in the Canterbury Regional Council bill and they should be repealing that if they’re concerned about voting rights, not this bill.

So this is a muddled and confused Government when it comes to its priorities, and that is why I think we’re finding that people are hanging up the hook on this Government and waiting with bated breath over the next few weeks for a change, because they want a Government that is focused on the things that really concern the community. What really concerns the community in the justice and the electoral sector is dealing more effectively with the real, serious violent crime that we see in our community, dealing effectively with the ram-raiders and the youth crime and dealing effectively with the long delays to justice that we’re seeing. These are very difficult problems and we should have our officials over in justice and in the Electoral Commission and all those people focused on those issues. The Electoral Commission, rather, should be focused on ensuring that we have equal voting rights in this country, not on this issue that they have given to them today.

So on that basis, now my final words will be to the Make It 16 group that started this off. Yep, they’ll be looking and saying, “Well, this guy’s not agreeing with us. Well, that’s no good.” That’s unfortunately how politics works; you don’t win every argument. Good luck to them for the efforts that they’ve made and good luck to them for the campaigning, and keep trying, and no criticism whatsoever—go for it. Go for gold. You’ve raised some very good arguments, it’s just that we think, when we’re dealing with the priorities of New Zealand as we face them today, that this is not the number one issue. Actually, most New Zealanders, if you ask them, are comfortable with the voting age that we’ve have had for a long time, which is 18. On that basis, Madam Speaker, we will be voting against this bill.

Just responding to the previous speaker—God forbid the House of Representatives should be focused on constitutional governance in this country. Very surprising. The member also referred to what else we’re doing in the justice space. I hope that member sticks around for the remainder of the week where about half of what we are doing in this week relates to the justice area.

It is a pleasure to take a call in relation to this bill. I’m going to use some of my brief time, actually, just to challenge some of what Michael Woodhouse said in his previous speech on the declaration, because it is important. Because for those young people who did raise the issue of Make It 16—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! I’m having a bit of trouble with this, because we are now not addressing the previous item of business; we are addressing the Electoral (Lowering Voting Age for Local Elections and Polls) Legislation Bill. So as the member continues with her speech, can she be very careful that the comments she makes fall within the scope of bill.

VANUSHI WALTERS: Thank you, Madam Speaker, for that clarification. Yes, I believe I will address this issue, which is that this bill has arisen because of a declaration of inconsistency that came from the Justice Committee where we made a specific recommendation that the voting age be lowered.

There has been comment in this House that if Parliament is supreme and has already considered a section 7 report, why should courts be able to send a declaration back to the House? It is because we don’t always receive the section 7 report at the end of the process. It comes to select committee. The bill that passes through the House may not be relevant in terms of that report.

The other is the passage of time. In terms of the setting of age, in 1974, the age of voting was changed for general elections to 18. Nobody is arguing that Parliament is not supreme, but there is a point of difference between legality and inconsistency with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. This is not America, where, if there is an inconsistency, the courts can strike down. The courts have simply said, “reconsider this”, which we have.

I would say to the Make It 16 campaigners: the fact of your challenge is equally as important as what’s proposed in the bill. I look forward to reading your submissions as they make their way into the next Parliament. Kia ora.

Well, thank you very much, Madam Speaker. Here we are, three days to go, in the dying days of this Government, and we are talking about the Electoral (Lowering Voting Age for Local Elections and Polls) Legislation Bill. Wow, isn’t that interesting? Isn’t that an interesting topic?

As the local government spokesperson, I tell you what: as I travel round this country, talking to local governments and talking to local councils and talking to local communities, do I hear continuously that this is the fundamental issue that this House should be taking through as legislation today? Well, I’ll tell you what, Madam Speaker, I’ll give you a little bit of a hint: the answer is no. There is no way that this is a priority for local government; they are drowning under a significant barrage by the “Minister of Reform” that is impacting them significantly.

Lowering the voting age is just another piece of electoral burden by this Government on that sector, which is not going to deal with the fundamental issues that they face. The fundamental issues that local government face are not the voting age and the people who can vote in local elections; it’s actually around funding and finance, and dealing with climate adaptation and dealing with infrastructure as a result of the disasters and the weather events that we’ve had in the last seven months—those are the priorities. Yet only in the last 48 hours have we seen the Government actually respond to that; yet they’ve had officials and other members of their caucus looking at and putting together this bill. Well, what a distraction; what a sideshow.

But Kiwis can see through this, can’t they, Madam Speaker. They can see through this. They know that this is not a priority. As a result, we’ve got a Government that’s ramming this legislation through the House today, as it does, using its parliamentary majority. But I’ll give you a little bit of an insight into what I can expect to occur with this bill under a National-led Government, Madam Speaker: it will not see the light of day. It will not see the light of day, because this is not a priority.

This is not an issue in regards to something that’s against those who are 16 or 17. I’ve got young boys coming up; they’ll be in this age band before long. It’s nothing about that aspect, but it is the fact that the age of 18 is widely accepted as the age which is appropriate in terms of those who should be voting, the age at which they enter into adulthood, and the age which is appropriate for people to be voting.

You’ve got a Government that has recognised the fact that they cannot get this over the line at an overall general election point of view—they can’t get that over the line because they need a 75 percent majority. They think, “Oh well, since we can’t get that over the line, let’s just actually try and ram this through local government.” Well, I think that’s disrespectful to local government, because what they are, in effect, saying is that they’re going to experiment on local government through a reform on the voting age which they are not able to carry through at an overall national level. Well, I’m sorry; local government are not there to be able to just be pushed upon by such changes that a Government does not have the mandate in order to do across the country. It is inconsistent, and inconsistent in electoral reform is no good for anyone. That is why, on this side of the House, we will be continuing to oppose this legislation as we go through.

I don’t think that we need to really discuss anything more in regards to this bill. It is a bill which is not a priority. It is a bill that this Government is ramming through in their dying days. I think, when we reflect back on this Labour-led Government in time to come, we will reflect on, say: why did they not use the opportunity that was afforded to them to pass legislation that would have genuine impact for those Kiwis across this country who are dealing with significant and massive issues in their lives? Primarily those issues relate to the cost of living crisis and the impact of law and order. That is a great disappoint. But this Government have a choice; they are accountable for the decisions that they pass through this House and they have made a conscious decision in order to prioritise legislation such as this over and above legislation that will make a fundamental and positive impact for all Kiwis.

The good thing is that Kiwis will have the choice in 35 days from now—35; not that long away. Five weeks from now, they’ll have the choice. Go to the polls, make your decision, and the future Government will have a mandate in order to execute that. I think that is appropriate and that is appropriate for our democracy. National will be opposing this bill.

Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker. This is a bill—it’s simple—about who our democracy should be for, whose voices should be represented on the national and local stage when we make decisions about Aotearoa New Zealand’s future—issues like climate change mitigation and adaptation; issues like whether out economy delivers for everyone. And on those decisions I say—and my Labour colleagues say—that 16-year-olds should be in that conversation, that they should have their voices heard if they want to participate, and that they’re ready to be heard in that conversation right now.

I want to thank the people who have been involved both in the Justice Committee’s consideration of the declaration of inconsistency and in who will be involved in this bill: the Justice Committee, under the chairmanship of the Hon Ginny Andersen and Vanushi Walters, as well as the Ministry of Justice and Department of Internal Affairs advisers, the clerk of the committee, Anna Platten, and deputy clerk, Jonathan Harris, but also those campaigners who have made their voices heard, who are representing young people at the table: the Make It 16 campaign, Caeden Tipler, Sanat Singh, Thomas, Dan, Ralph—one of my favourite people in the world—and all of those young people who have written to me as a local MP to say that they want to be involved and that their voices matter. I say to them: your voice does matter and that’s why I’m voting in favour of this bill.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. The ACT Party won’t be supporting this bill, the Electoral (Lowering Voting Age for Local Elections and Polls) Legislation Bill. I think what’s important to examine is what the basis for this legislation is. What is the problem statement? Because, although Parliament is here to pass legislation, debate legislation, explore it, it’s always on the basis that there’s a problem that’s been defined that only legislation can solve. What I haven’t heard here today or from the Minister of Local Government is what is the problem this is designed to solve and how it does solve it.

Now, the Minister has talked about if we can increase representation and if we can encourage younger people to vote, then that will increase turnout in local body elections. Well, it may well increase the turnout for people aged between 16 and 18, but the Minister doesn’t offer any solution as to why so many people have lost confidence in local government that in some places around New Zealand, turnout at local government elections is between 30 to 40 percent of electors. The Minister doesn’t offer any link between this legislation proposing to increase the suffrage to 16 and 17yearolds and how that will restore confidence in local government, although he has made a number of statements in public and in the House at different times that lowering the voting age for local governments to 16 will restore confidence and increase turnout. Well, the ACT Party doesn’t believe the Minister’s assertions, and there’s actually nothing in this bill that clearly defines the problem statement. There’s nothing in the explanatory notes. It simply says what it does, as if that explains what the clauses are. What we want to know—what the ACT Party wants to know, what people sitting at home want to know—is: what’s the problem this is trying to solve? Because the bill does not explain that.

We have heard repeatedly that New Zealanders have lost confidence in local government and that has resulted in lower turnouts at elections. There’s been concerns that the quality of candidates offering themselves to represent electors at local government level—whether it’s at full council or local board or community board—is not sufficient to deal with the complexity of the problems that we face in our communities, whether it’s about how we respond and adapt to climate change, how we fund and finance infrastructure so that more land can be made available for high-density housing, so that better public transport services can be offered in a way that meets the needs of communities and groups within communities. None of these problems that local government faces that they are unable to solve, either because they don’t have the tools or the funding and financing or potentially they don’t have representatives, elected members, with the competencies and the experience to solve these problems—none of that is described in this bill. It’s not described in the problem statement; it’s certainly not described in the legislation which follows.

So why is it that these problems have developed with councils? Well, councils haven’t delivered for their communities in many cases. Councils have said, “Look, we need more sports fields, we need more swimming pools to meet demands that our population growth has put on communities, but we don’t have the money to do it.” But they keep signing consents and more and more people keep coming to live in communities. That’s what I personally experienced in West Auckland. We have one swimming pool for 250,000 people. When that swimming pool was built for the 1990 Commonwealth Games, played in West Auckland, there were only 150,000 people living in West Auckland. So, again, community services, community facilities, have not kept up with population growth. That’s one reason why councils are not seen by many communities as actually worthwhile turning out to vote for.

Then we have activist policy makers within local government who have taken on the role in many ways that elected members should, by insisting, for example, that if we’re going to get more people walking and cycling—rather than making the big calls about where do we build high-quality walking and cycling infrastructure that caters for people at all ages and stages of life, what they’ve done is they’ve said, “Well, we just want to run a cycleway through your local town centre, which means taking out all the car parks outside small business, and we don’t care. We’ll conduct some average consultation and then we’ll take out the car parks and paint cycle lanes on the road, and we don’t really care what the community thinks.” All of these things act to undermine confidence that people have that even turning out to vote for local government is worth their while.

And you say, “Well, how on earth could local government get away with doing this for so long?” Well, that’s where central government has a role. Central government has been imposing unfunded obligations on to local government in the form of red tape and regulations. All kinds of things like even checking buildings’ warrants of fitness. It turns out that when they had the terrible fire in a boarding house in Wellington recently, Wellington City Council hadn’t even fulfilled its own obligations to check that building’s warrant of fitness, even though there were people who depended on the safety of that building when they went to sleep at night—to check that the sprinklers worked, for example. But Governments imposed these unfunded obligations on to councils, whether they should be doing them or not, whether they should be funded centrally to do them or not.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! Order! I’ve been listening very carefully to the member’s speech, and while I appreciate he is traversing matters to do with local government, this bill has a slightly different focus, and that is the voting arrangements under the Local Electoral Act. In his three minutes 33 seconds, I will invite Simon Court to come closer to the bill at hand.

SIMON COURT: Thank you, Madam Speaker. Always appreciate your guidance and it will be missed when you are no longer a member of Parliament, Madam Speaker.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Are you sure, though? Are you sure?

SIMON COURT: Yes, it will definitely be missed. This bill, while it lowers the voting age to 16 for local elections and polls, doesn’t change the age for elected members to an alcohol licensing trust, for example, or the trustee of the community trust, or serving as a juror. So it’s unclear why the mandate is extended to only voting in local government elections for 16-year-olds, although these other mandates are not. Again, it’s incoherent legislation that doesn’t address a policy problem that itself is not adequately explained.

But I do want to offer some hope and encouragement to young people who are not just aged 16 or 17 but potentially even younger who want to become involved in politics. There are plenty of opportunities to join a political party, to join a youth wing, to become a volunteer, to attend debates, to support candidates, to come here and to learn how the parliamentary process works, to make submissions to select committee—as so many young people have when it comes to this bill, not just on a matter of electoral franchise but also on other matters that affect young people. Of course, there is an election coming up. In just a couple of days, Parliament will rise. Many of the MPs here who are seeking re-election will muster teams which include many, many young people to go around their electorates, standing up hoardings and signs, handing out flyers, attending all kinds of events, and asking people would they give their party vote to the party of their choice. And the ACT Party’s not alone. We’re also continuing to seek young people to join our youth wing, to come along to our events, to hear our MPs speak and share policy ideas, but most importantly to get questions from young people about matters that affect them.

So while ACT won’t be supporting this bill, we do encourage young people who want to get involved in the political process: you don’t have to wait until you’re 18; you can join the ACT Party youth wing. You can come along to our debates. We’d be happy to have you in our team. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise for the second time this afternoon to say that this is a historic day in our Parliament. It was a historic moment an hour or so ago when we, for the first time ever, debated a higher court’s finding of inconsistency in legislation with our New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. And it was on this very issue: the discrimination faced by 16- and 17-year-olds in our nation, where they are banned from exercising their fundamental right to vote. The court found that discrimination was not justified, and I do commend the Minister, the Hon Kieran McAnulty, for trying to alleviate immediately that breach in some ways through this bill.

Democracy is a fundamental human right. I’ve said this before, but I will say it again: it’s one of the ones that really underpins the whole system. Without a voice in the way that all of our rights, all of our interests, are governed, arguably we can’t truly have a fulfilment of any of those rights. It’s also important to notice, as the court found, and I think any declaration of inconsistency does, that our rights are universal and inalienable. We hear again and again—we’ve heard it today in this House—that young people should wait; young people lack the experience, the expertise; they should be doing other things. They should be making tea for the ACT Party while they campaign! Or they should be gaining the life experience that you need to exercise your fundamental rights—whatever else they’ve been told to do before they get their right to vote. That is a slippery slope.

None of us in this House has been elected because we first ticked a box of requisite experience or expertise. Eighteen-year-olds don’t need to show a certain level of expertise or experience, and I want us to notice that being young in New Zealand today is expertise. None of us know what it’s like for a 16- or 17-year-old today in Aotearoa, trying to access the mental health system, dealing with public transport, dealing with schools, dealing with the justice system. Our decisions in this House are informed by all of our life experience and expertise. They are stronger because we take into account that range of experience, of challenge or privilege, and that is what democracy seeks to bring to all our decision making. That is what young people have fought for.

We’ve got a pretty strong democracy. We celebrate New Zealand as the first nation to give women suffrage. And I do want us to remember that the same arguments were raised against women’s suffrage: women lacked expertise; women could busy themselves doing something else that would benefit democracy. In the end, it was only when we could truly vote that Governments and Parliaments became accountable to us as women. Our experiences in all of those systems came to the fore. That is how we update and strengthen our democracy: to notice where there are gaps, to listen to report writers, the Electoral Commission, the Supreme Court, the experts, the select committees, and those who are most impacted. That’s the problem statement that this bill seeks to fix. Not one of us would stand for a delay on our fundamental rights, not least to vote, for two years after a Government or a Parliament was put on notice that they were breaching that fundamental right.

We’ve said all of this already, but I’m going to count through it again: 16-year-olds can leave school, they can have sex, they can drive cars, and, yes, they can work and pay tax without representation. That’s inconsistent with a lot of values on this side of the House. But, for the Green Party, this is about democracy. We fought for MMP, we fought for disabled persons’ engagement in democracy, for Māori, and we stand and have always stood against discrimination against 16- and 17-year-olds from the moment it became clear. I could not be more proud to stand with every young person who has led this movement. It has been them who have led it, and we know that they’re ready, because we heard from them by the tens of thousands outside this House when they came to tell us that we need to take action on the climate crisis. We hear from them all the time in our select committees on mental health, on education, on the roads, and the systems that, let’s face it, are going to impact their lives the longest. So I could not be more proud to have stood with this movement for so long.

I want to say that, as much as we’ve been celebrating this bill, I know that until 2028 is too long to wait. It’s not OK that the Government is putting off implementing this and giving those young people their right to vote for so long. It’s a clerical change. It would be amazing to the life force of school-age kids right now to be able to engage properly with the next local body election, in 2025—to get to enrol while they’re together in school before they disperse, go off to uni, get jobs, have kids maybe. And what we know, what we absolutely know from those reports from the Electoral Commission, from the Justice Committee, from all the experts is that the engagement of people in democracy goes up and becomes a lifetime habit if they enrol and vote in the first election in which they become eligible. That evidence—that data—is really clear, and the data is really clear coming from overseas jurisdictions who have extended the right to vote to 16- and 17-year-olds. It’s not that new a concept. They’ve been doing it for a decade elsewhere in the world. And we know that, if local body elections have lower voter turnout, and if young people have lower voter turnout in our general elections, one way of actually fixing that, of creating voters of all ages for generations to come, is to engage young people by providing them their right to vote while they’re still at school. We know that. So we’re ignoring a moral, legal, and practical imperative to change the law before 2028.

Gen Z deserves to get their right to vote now, and, in fact, all young people in New Zealand deserve to have their right to vote in general elections and in local elections. That’s their right. I understand that right now this is all we can do. But I do implore parties across the House to take party politics out of democracy, to read those expert reports, to read and engage with the submissions of young people, of experts, of the Children’s Commissioner, and say actually—and this is what I’m really excited about with this bill—decisions of those local institutions will be stronger; they will be more enduring, more sustainable, and solve many more of the problems that face their localities, and that that is what should happen here. With the voices of young people; with accountability of lawmakers at every level, to everyone who has a right to vote; with engagement being built into our elections; with those young people who’ve called on us to give them their right to vote; but, more than that, with every young person while they’re still at school—that’s what democracy is about, and that’s why I’m so, so, so proud of us today, of the whole movement, and to have stood with you, with the Green movement, together for so long.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise to take a short call on the Electoral (Lowering Voting Age for Local Elections and Polls) Legislation Bill. I also wanted to add my voice to the speaker who just resumed her seat, Golriz Ghahraman, that this is indeed a significant day. It’s a significant day in the sense that these young people have bravely campaigned for this and are here today—and I congratulate all of you for all of your hard work, and shame to the Opposition MPs who talk down this bill.

Simon Court—no, Simon Watts, actually—no, Paul Goldsmith said that when he went doorknocking in Epsom, he couldn’t find anyone that could tell him that this is an issue. He doesn’t need to look for them in Epsom; they are here. He just needs to notice them.

This is a very important bill, because the Supreme Court made it clear that preventing these brave young people from having their voting rights is inconsistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. For us, on this side of the House, we are very proud that we are supporting this. This is a good bill; I commend it to the House.

Simon O’Connor, five minutes.

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. One of the striking things is, if this is such a brave, amazing moment in time for the Government, why they are taking such short calls? I would have thought that such passion would’ve required a much deeper explanation, but it doesn’t. I’ll come back to one of the reasons why I think that’s the case.

But I do want to echo what others have said. As I move about the electorate of Tāmaki, as I doorknock, or do my coffee meetings, about to do street corner meetings over the coming weekend—people are not talking to me about a voting age. Some do, some of my younger constituents—if I push the issue—will raise and discuss it with me. That’s exceptionally welcome. People are much more worried about the gun crime, the breaking into their premises, and just the general cost of living. Why that’s important, as we consider this bill tonight, is: why, with all the issues which this country faces, is the Government focused on this?

I want to be really clear, particularly to young people: it’s not that this is not an important issue. I think it’s one that’s welcome to be discussed and debated. But we have less than two days left in this Parliament. Of all the things, as I say, that we could be discussing—crime, cost of living, our relationship with other countries around the world, agriculture, you name it—we’re not; instead we’re discussing this. Something was actually pointed out by my honourable colleague Vanushi Walters: this is something of constitutional import. Normally, when we’re dealing with electoral changes, there’s comity or agreement across the House, but there’s not, because this has been rammed through. I want to drive home that point. We have less than two days of this Parliament, and we have—what I would describe as—a very pyrrhic dynamic coming through from this Government. Not only will this not actually pass through; it’ll pass tonight, I’m sure, but it’s only first reading—this actually isn’t going to make a notable difference. Secondly, they’re not taking proper and full calls to actually—I would suggest—respect those who’ve spent a lot of time putting in their submissions and so forth.

Turning to the court’s decision. The court’s allowed to make its decisions. Personally, I think it’s—and I’ve done this once before in Parliament—to remind the court and the courts of this land that Parliament is sovereign. I acknowledge that they see that this is something about discrimination—well, that’s perfectly fine as well. Of course, one doesn’t need to be a genius to say that the courts themselves are continuing discrimination by making it 16. The Make it 15 crowd are probably feeling a bit upset at the moment. Without being too flippant, this is one of those things that always drives me mad. A lot of people talk about human rights. I’m all for human rights. I think they’re really important. But the hint about human rights is in those two words: the rights are for humans, all humans. Again, I’m being slightly flippant to illustrate the point, but where are the rights of three-, five-, 10-, 12-, and 15-year-olds in this decree?

So if people are going to start including the judges, throwing around the words like “discrimination”, they better have good, rather than arbitrary, reasons to set the line at where they see fit. Because, quite rightly, as other colleagues in the House have pointed out, there are massive inconsistencies around where the age of consent, purchasing property, voting, driving, joining the military, getting married—all of these things are all over the place. Going to a casino—I think you have to be 20. It’s all over the place. This doesn’t solve that; it just further makes it arbitrary, and I just think that that’s unhelpful. So, obviously, I’m not supportive of dropping it down, for those reasons.

The other two—and I pointed it out when I had some wonderful debates with younger ones in my electorate—is, of course, 16- and 17-year-olds are treated differently in the criminal justice space. Now, I don’t want to get into a long discussion into that per se, but if we’re going to be—as some are—arguing for the rights to vote because it’s a human right, well, there’s also a human right to justice. That one’s, you know, a bit of a humdinger, really. Justice is a human right; it’s one of the most fundamental human rights. Perhaps the court and others might want to consider that that should be applied to all humans, without discrimination.

The last thing I want to point out, as some others have done as well, is that there are many ways that people can express their voices to this Parliament. I said to a group of young people recently—not around age—that you don’t have to be an MP to actually effect change in this country. It’s probably on that note that I want to end. There are so many ways to lobby, to change, to cajole, to contribute to this great realm and to this great democracy.

E te Māngai o te Whare, tēnā koe, otirā ngā mema katoa, otirā tātou katoa.

[To the Speaker, I greet you and all the members, indeed all of us.]

I’m pleased to take a call on the Electoral (Lowering Voting Age for Local Elections and Polls) Legislation Bill. Our Māori history tells us that tamariki and rangatahi were always part of wānanga and important conversations that impacted our people—tamariki and rangatahi were taught from a very early age to be critical thinkers. Their presence, contribution, and freedom to observe was integral to succession planning.

Tamariki and rangatahi are indeed the vessel of our tīpuna’s wildest dreams and they are activators for our future. It was the imposition of colonisation—the western education system that reframed the way we viewed our rangatahi, and instead of seeing them as the bastion of our Aotearoa home, we were conditioned by a Pākehā rhetoric that tamariki and rangatahi are to be seen and not heard.

The Electoral (Lowering Voting Age for Local Elections and Polls) Legislation Bill before the House today is the first step towards acknowledging the very real value our rangatahi have in building our Aotearoa home. On every kapa haka stage across this country, our rangatahi are using their voice to raise awareness about political issues that impact on them. They use that voice to call out political parties and politicians for reckless political decisions. Our Aotearoa hau demands that we believe in our rangatahi and that we empower them to lead, and that we have the courage to begin our succession planning.

It is not acceptable that we sit here making hugely impactful decisions on people and about people when they aren’t even in the room to contribute to what that looks like. We sit here with the audacity to believe that it’s that this House and the people in it that are the saviours of our world’s problems. E kī rā! [Really!] This Parliament does it to Māori, they do it to takatāpui, and they do it to whānau hoa and/or minority communities.

The argument that our rangatahi do not engage or participate in voting lacks intellect, and purposely forgets to highlight the fact that the system has been designed in a way to keep people out. The Electoral (Lowering Voting Age for Local Elections and Polls) Legislation Bill begins to address that. With that said, it is all well to lower the voting age, but the Government must commit to further wrapping the right systems around our rangatahi so that they can access education and understanding about civics in Aotearoa.

Rangatahi will not engage in any system where they don’t see themselves. This is why Te Paati Māori is walking its talk by elevating rangatahi on its list. There is a saying in te reo Māori, “Ko ngā rangatahi ngā rangatira mō āpōpō”. [“Our youth are our leaders of tomorrow.”]

Te Paati Māori says: kāo, ko ngā rangatahi ngā rangatira o ināianei [no, our youth are our leaders of today].

Te Paati Māori and I support this bill with the preface that we need to pack around specific education and civics, particularly for our youth. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to take a call on the Electoral (Lowering Voting Age for Local Elections and Polls) Legislation Bill. This bill has come about, partly, because of the declaration of inconsistency in the courts that was found regarding the voting age with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act.

“Inconsistency” is one of those things we’ve heard from the Opposition in the House today. I want to point out a few things that young people, 16- and 17-year-olds, care about. As Mr O’Connor mentioned, there are many things that New Zealanders care about. Well, 16- and 17-year-olds care about the cost of living, 16- and 17-year-olds care about crime, 16- and 17-year-olds care about climate change and our environment. All of those important things that matter to New Zealanders—that many of us out on the doorsteps today are hearing from New Zealanders—16- and 17-year-olds care about those things too.

I particularly want to point out some comments from Simon Court, who said he wasn’t sure why this bill came about. Well, it came about because there was a declaration in the court. I just want to note that the ACT Party thinks it’s OK to give semi-automatic weapons to 16-year-olds, but they don’t want to let 16-year-olds vote. Now, that’s the definition of “inconsistency” in this House tonight. This is an excellent bill, and I commend it to the House.

Well, there are a number of ironies emerging out of this debate.

Let’s start with the first one. We’ve spent the afternoon debating the importance of the human rights of our young. We debated the select committee report, and now we’re debating this bill at first reading. The next bill is a bill that completely undermines the human rights of 12- and 13-year-olds. The Attorney-General has issued a vet saying that that bill is inconsistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. So while these members crow about how fond they are of the rights of young people, let’s just bear that in mind when we come to that bill after dinner.

The other inconsistency and irony is in—I think it was Golriz Ghahraman who implored us to listen to the voices of the young people. Well, I have been here for six years in Opposition while that Government completely ignored the voices on the bills that they were putting through—sitting in select committee after select committee, listening to submitter after submitter saying the bills that they were passing were a really bad idea. The previous speaker, Rachel Boyack’s, Plain Language Bill is a really good example of that. There wasn’t a single submission that wasn’t a friend of Rachel Boyack’s who said it was a good idea. They said don’t pass it. What did the Government do? They passed it. So when we’re talking about listening to the voices of the people, how about we get a little bit more consistent?

The last irony—and I think it was touched on by Paul Goldsmith in his first reading speech on this bill—was the priorities of the Government in respect of the justice portfolio. How many things could the Government be doing right now to protect people in their own homes, street violence, retail crime, ram raids—and what are we doing? We’re talking about the age to vote. Important issue, but as, I think, Simon O’Connor said, on the doorsteps of Tāmaki—and right around the country—not a single National member has had this raised as an issue.

Actually, in the context of civics education—which I think is a really good idea, albeit that the New Zealand education curriculum makes it perfectly possible for schools to teach civics education and democracy. In fact, in our primary and intermediate schools, there’s some really good election material that I hope will be rolled out again in the 2023 election, where primary school kids can participate in their own elections: they can form manifestos, they can campaign, and then their classmates get to vote. That’s a really good thing to be doing. But two things about that. We’re not going to give an eight-year-old the vote—that’s fine. But the number one priority in civics education is getting our young people back to school in the first place. Because there are woefully low turnouts even in education, much less in voting.

I want to turn to that as the last key point on this. Because as a member of Parliament based in Dunedin and with the University of Otago in the electorate that I stand in, the question of 16- and 17year-olds being eligible to vote has come up on a number of occasions. I have been very clear that while I think that’s a conversation worth having, surely the goal for political engagement right now is to make sure greater numbers of people who are currently, presently eligible to vote actually do so. Because a robust democracy actually relies on active participation.

Unfortunately, the rate of turnout in our general elections has gone down and down. So my response to anybody who says, “Well, shouldn’t we give 16-year-olds the vote?” is, “How about we actually make sure our 18- to 24-year-olds—and our 25- to 29-year-olds—form sustainable and regular voting habits?” Because, as has been pointed out in this debate, if a person doesn’t have those voting habits by the time they are about 25 or 26, they are unlikely to have regular voting habits through the rest of their adult lives.

Now, I will note, in the 2020 election there was a rather pleasing uptick both in the overall voter turnout and in the turnout by 18- to 24-year-olds. But it’s too early to say whether or not that is a pattern—a sort of a Canute-like turning back of the tide of ambivalence that has pervaded our electorate right across. Certainly it’s ambivalence when it comes to local elections.

When I tried to find out the voting propensity of our 18- to 24-year-olds in local council elections, rather surprisingly, the Department of Internal Affairs doesn’t actually keep that data; they don’t provide an age breakdown of turnout. But there’s no doubt that since the local government reforms of 1989, there has been a consistent and inexorable drop in overall turnout in city councils from 52 percent in 1989. The last election—in, what was it, 2022, I think?—had just 39 percent of eligible voters turning out. In our regional councils, just 43 percent turning out. In our district councils, a little bit greater, but still fewer than half—45 percent. So, surely, if we want to have an active, interested, engaged electorate, let’s look at the turnout for those people who are currently eligible to vote before we can contemplate extending the age range down to 16.

There is merit in this, and I’ll come back to—I was going to say that was my last point, but there is one more point to make and that is why we’re not doing this for the Electoral Act. The Government’s been very upfront about that. They’ve done it because they don’t think they’ll get it through. By majority, they’ll get this bill passed at first reading. But that is highly inconsistent. If it’s a good idea, let’s have the debate, the discussion, and make it a good idea for both central and local elections and not cherry-pick just because this isn’t entrenched legislation. Frankly, it should be, in my view. It should be both entrenched for local and central elections.

Nobody on this side of the House is afraid of the conversation. But let’s have it in a proper and orderly fashion, and this isn’t that.

Point of order, Madam Speaker. I’d like to raise the point that Rachel Boyack just said, that ACT wants to give 16-year-olds AR-15s—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): No, no, no.

DAMIEN SMITH: She’s incorrect.

No. the member will sit. The member will sit down. That is not a point of order. Members, the time has come for me to leave the Chair for the dinner break. The House will resume at 7.30 p.m.

Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.