‘Lower the voting age to 16’

A senior university lecturer wants to see more young people voting and thinks lowering the voting age to 16 will help.

Patrick Barrett says if the voters in Hamilton City Council’s 2016 election were represented by a room of 10 people, only three of them would have voted and most of those would have been land owners, over 50 and privileged.

Only 33.6 per cent of those eligible voted, and that’s a whole lot of people – younger residents, new migrants and lower socioeconomic groups – who are not voting.

The Waikato University senior lecturer in public policy and political science says it’s about making political institutions more representative.

‘‘If more young people don’t vote we are going to end up with policy being made mostly by people 50 years and older, with the interests, perspectives and concerns of young people not being taken into account.’’

Austria and Malta have done it and those countries haven’t been overrun by irrational and immature young people, he said.

The common arguments that 16-year-olds can’t make decisions, that they only vote the way their parents do, could be applied to 18-year-olds as well.

‘‘Eighteen year olds are typically influenced in their first vote by the way their parents have voted, that’s a well established insight.’’

Along with teaching more civics education in schools, it might mean voting becomes a ‘‘more normal and regular part of being a citizen’’.

Many young people don’t feel local politics is relevant, but it’s the level of government closest to us, Barrett said.

It’s about the city young people live in now and the future city they’ll inherit.

Councils deal with issues around housing, the environment, public spaces and climate change, he said.

‘‘And many councils are reluctant to take on those futurefocussed issues seriously.’’

Barrett believes better decisions will not only be made with more younger people voting, but with more younger faces around the council table, too.

The signs of political engagement in the schools strike for climate change and the rise in young local body candidates are hopeful signs for an increased youth vote, Barrett said.

But it remains to be seen.

MARK TAYLOR/STUFF Waikato University academic Patrick Barrett says it’s important to make sure political institutions, whether at the council table or in the Beehive, are more representative.