Voting age declared unjustified age discrimination

November 28, 2022

Interviews by Daniel Teunissen and Joe Wickins, adapted by Joe Wickins

Dr Nick Munn, a Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Waikato, wants the government to take on board the decision of the court and introduce a bill to lower the voting age. Photo: 

Listen to the full interviews with Dr Nick Munn, and Make It 16 co-director Sanat Singh.

Last week, the Supreme Court made a judgment on lowering New Zealand’s legal voting age.

The court accepted the claims made by Make It 16 campaign members that the current voting age of 18 is inconsistent with section 19 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights.

This means that preventing 16 and 17-year-olds from voting is discrimination on the basis of their age.

Dr Nick Munn, a Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Waikato told Joe Wickins on 95bFM's The Wire that he believes the Supreme Court made a good decision.

"It is quite encouraging as someone who has been arguing for a lowered voting age for a while."

Dr Munn wants to see the government to take on board the decision of the court and introduce a bill rather than opening the matter up for debate.

“I don’t think there are any good arguments against it. I think it is just wrong to say that young people don’t pay taxes. Large numbers of 16 to 17-year-olds are already working. Anyone that is working is paying tax, and anyone that is not is paying tax via GST.”

Munn criticised the argument that young people are inexperienced, don’t know enough about voting, or lack maturity.

“There’s a quite simple response to all this. We don’t judge adults with regards to their maturity, knowledge, or their competence. We just let any and every adult vote, simply because they’re over the age of 18.”

Sanat Singh, a co-director of Make It 16, told Daniel Teunissen on The Wire that despite the positive decision, they have a lot of work left to do.

"We have basically a six-month timeline with the new bill that the government is introducing, and that is going to require us to do a lot of lobbying work to make sure that we can get enough votes on our side to make this pass and give us the best fighting chance.”

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