Sixteen’s not old enough

Should 16-year-olds join the voting public? This question is now front and centre thanks to the Supreme Court’s decision on the minimum voting age.

A majority of the court’s judges declared that excluding 16 and 17-year-olds was an infringement of their right to freedom from discrimination on the basis of age under the Bill of Rights Act 1990.

The court also held that this infringement was not a reasonable limit on the right which could be ‘‘justified in a free and democratic society’’.

Next step? The Government needs to respond formally, but there’s no requirement for Parliament to change any laws. The Bill of Rights is not supreme law.

The Government could respond by saying something like, ‘‘thanks, but we’re happy with the law as it is’’.

But no. The Government has already announced that it will introduce legislation to amend the minimum voting age to 16.

According to the prime minister, this is the ‘‘natural response’’ which will give ‘‘Parliament an additional opportunity . . . to share their view’’.

Justice Minister Kiritapu Allan also said that introducing legislation would give the public a say through the select committee process.

This is curious, for the Government has already set up the Independent Electoral Review to look into all manner of issues to do with our electoral system. Top of the list? The voting age.

Having collected public submissions on the voting age (as well as other electoral matters) for the last two months, it’s scheduled to report back to the minister late next year.

By introducing legislation now, the

Government has gazumped its own review panel on this issue.

So process aside, how should we approach the issue of the minimum voting age? Most of the commonly raised arguments are unconvincing.

For example, although 16 and 17-year-olds are affected by laws passed by Parliament, this does not provide an argument for lowering the voting age to 16 and no further. After all, a newborn will feel the effects of today’s political decisions for longer than a 17-year-old.

Similarly, the argument that 16 is more in line with the legal age of majority is not true. As the Court of Appeal noted, the ‘‘age of responsibility varies greatly under New Zealand law’’, and there are many areas where it is generally deemed to be 18, like contract law, making wills, getting married, and the criminal justice system, to name a few.

It should come down to competence. The key argument is whether 18 or 16 is a better age to vote competently. This was the argument the Supreme Court rightly focused on, deciding that 16-year-olds were competent enough to vote.

However, its evaluation was unfortunately incomplete and one-sided, as the attorney-general failed to put forward any evidence or arguments to the contrary.

The argument that 16 is more in line with the legal age of majority is not true.

In the end, the court based its decision on one international study and the evidence of one expert witness. The court explicitly noted that ‘‘evidence that might have rebutted [this view] was not before the [c]ourt’’.

The evidence, however, is out there. It suggests that, throughout our teens, our brains are inherently imbalanced. While the part concerned with rapid, automatic processing matures around puberty, the part which allows us to think in the abstract, weigh moral dilemmas and control impulses does not mature until our mid-to-late 20s.

This imbalance means that teenagers are more susceptible to peer pressure (even without direct coercion), are more likely to focus on immediate benefits and underestimate long-term consequences, and are less able to resist social and emotional influences.

The odds are against us when making the decisions required at the voting booth in our teenage years. This evidence might even justify raising the voting age to 25, but, at the very least, it suggests an 18-year-old is more mature and more competent than a 16-year-old.

The Supreme Court’s decision has merely started the public debate on the minimum voting age. Parliament will ultimately decide. When the time comes to make a submission, take your chance to get a one-up on our attorney-general and look at the evidence about competency – you might find that 16 is not the new 18.

Marcus Roberts is a senior researcher at the Maxim Institute, an independent think tank.