At 16, our children are legally allowed to drive a car and, in most Australian states and territories, consent to sex. They can go to the doctor without our knowledge and fill the prescription given to them. In some states, they can apply for housing. And if their parents are on board, they can even join the army.
More than ever before, teenagers have grown older, younger. Many have their own online businesses, write and sell their own music, and have audiences our politicians employ whole offices to chase.
Yet they are not still allowed to vote in state or federal elections. It’s as old-fashioned as one can imagine, for several reasons.
In most cases, a 16-year-old Australian in 2022 is very different from their parents at the same age. They might not have embarked on the same adventures, or found strife in the same way, but they are cluey and connected in a way unique to their generation.
They understand bitcoin and its underlying technology, when their parents only pretend they do. They know geography in a way we couldn’t learn from the Encyclopaedia Brittanica. And they are engaged and want a say in their future — and we should be embracing that.
Many teenagers are leaving home at this age. They are registering as blood donors, and for tax file numbers and superannuation accounts. They have jobs and own small stock accounts that they hope will one day balloon into big ones.
Indeed, an Australian 16-year-old can even register to vote. But that’s just teasing — they’re not permitted to write on the ballot paper and pop it into the ballot box for two more years.
Ironically, perhaps, it is Donald Trump we need to thank for our teenagers’ political engagement. He was loud and brash and often offensive. Australian children wanted something and someone better than that, and they joined TikTok and a host of other platforms to discuss it.
This took place not just in America, but in their own country, too, where former prime minister Scott Morrison dismissed their generation as kids who didn’t deserve a view. An obvious example was the youth interest in climate change rallies. Instead of listening to what they had to say, the message they heard was that they were better off in the classroom learning trigonometry.
But here’s the thing: this generation is pretty adept at multi-tasking. They can eat, text and surf the net while packing the dishwasher. They have strong views, and they should be allowed to lodge their vote in accordance with them.
New Zealand is flirting with the idea of allowing 16-year-olds to vote after its senior court ruled that it was inconsistent with the country’s bill of rights not to allow 16 and 17-year-olds a vote. Why wouldn’t we do the same in Australia?
The AEC says 86.4% of young Australians aged 18 to 24 — 1,663,853 people — are enrolled to vote. Two years ago, this was 80%.
The Greens have, for several years now, pushed this as an issue and will do so again with independent MP Monique Ryan when Parliament resumes in 2023. But imagine if we could engage another million or so young people aged 16 to 18. What does it say to future leaders when we don’t give them a vote in the world they want to lead?
Their vote, like their parents’, will run the political spectrum. But there are some issues on which most of them agree. A passion for the environment and climate policy that endures time and political colours. A lack of judgment directed at others, whether regarding transgender laws or mental health struggles or the role of ATAR in determining their futures. A spectrum where diversity is encouraged. Where inclusion simply exists.
The pandemic left a legacy of muted teen lives, teaching them the heartache of isolation: school from their bedroom, university from their lounge room. They listened to their parents tell them this would be “the time of their lives” — but it wasn’t. That’s left many with an ongoing struggle, and should not be dismissed.
The teenagers of today care about the same issues older generations do. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The treatment of women and consent. The cost of living. The power of a new breed of politicians in the teals.
This savvy generation envelops one another, and their challenges, and works collaboratively. Is it possible that we could all learn from them?
Allowing 16-year-olds to vote would not only mean we’d hear the voice of a big chunk of the nation at the ballot box. We’d also see more MPs like them sitting in Parliament.
That should be a future that carries all our votes.
Are young people ready to have a say in the running of Australia? Let us know your thoughts by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.
Let them vote. I like the idea that was once suggested that it be optional for 16 and 17 yos to register to vote, keeping 18 as the compulsory age. The teens who are really engaged will take the option. It shouldn’t be surprising that there are still many people of all ages who never registered to vote and even if they were, don’t bother. I worked at a couple of election polling places, donkey votes are a given, but blank ballot papers aren’t unusual either. Some people are only turning up to get their names crossed off the list.
As for the suggestion that votes be weighted by age, that wouldn’t be possible. Votes are not identifiable at all as to age, gender, demographic or anything like that, only by electorate. That’s how democracy works. Everyone of voting age gets an equal say. And there’s nothing to say that there aren’t older voters who can and do vote along the same lines as younger voters, their vote shouldn’t be of less value because of age. That starts to become discrimatory.
Really? So how do we enforce the age limit on voting? The objections you list are not insuperable, while still preserving the principle of a secret ballot.
You need id with date of birth to enrol.
I like that idea of optional for over 16 year olds.
Letting the camels nose of non-compulsory voting into the tent is risky business.
The hard right – hi, Nick Minchin! – agree which is why they strive unceasingly to make it seem ‘a good thing’.
In line with this it means that a 16 yr-old should also be eligible to run for parliament…
Not necessarily. Many jurisdictions have different age limits for voting and standing for office.
Indeed. Well-known example: a candidate for President of the USA must be, among other things, over 35 years old.
If a 16 year old can convince enough people to vote for them that they are elected, they probably deserve to be there.
Yes, there’s a strong argument for lowering the voting age. Assuming we stick with elections and voting, I’d go further, though I cannot imagine this proposal getting up: Voting should be weighted so it recognises how many years the voter will, probably, have to live with the consequences. Let’s say, for argument, every voter is notionally going to live to about 80 years old. Someone under twenty years old therefore is expected to have over six decades. Somone who is in their seventies has under a decade. Therefore count each vote from voters under twenty as seven votes, those in their twenties as six votes, and so on; with the vote of anyone over seventy (no matter how old) counted as one vote.
This seems much fairer than the current set up which appears to favour the elderly far too much, leaving the young with a hell of a bill to pay for the selfishness of those who will not live to see the consequences of their reckless, feckless and greedy behaviour.
GENIUS! – of course it will never fly … well, not until we lower the voting age to 16 – then, who knows what will happen
Of course women growing up in the 1960s and 70s were there when many of the fundamental changes that are now taken for granted were enacted. For example the right for women to work after they got married. When I had my first holiday job in the Australian Public Service,, women’s pay was less than men’s. Read Anne Summers book some time to see what women achieved back then. All ages have something different to offer.
But I get your point.
Interesting idea, only 100% back to front – not that there’s anything wrong with that in the alternative Universe seemingly inhabited by a majority of the population .
Few under 20 know their A from their E or care – life is too much fun to fart-arse about with rules and regs. of less than zero meaning to them in the moment of youth.
At least 70yrs old have something by which to judge reality.
Personally, I’d restrict the franchise to those with Fs to give and something to lose if wrong – 1) property with a significant rates valuation, 2) some indication they know which way is up and 3) a general awareness that decisions have consequences, beyond wondering where one awakens.
My vision has even less chance than yours – this is fun isn’t it, waffling while the world goes to Hell in a handbasket.
I’m not sure you are right about the chances of your proposition. It would simply put things back where they were, more less, in the days when the franchise was only extended to those who owned some property (and were male, which was almost automatic anyway since it was at least difficult for women to have their own property). And plenty of other things are going backwards, so why not?
The idea that some intellect and knowledge is required for voting is hardly new either, and was deployed to great effect to resist expanding the franchise back in the 19th C when education was far from universal. Sadly, when tests have been used to weed out allegedly incompetent voters (e.g. in the southern states of the USA) it has always been in practice a flagrant abuse by those in power aimed to exclude political opponents, so a reasonable idea in principle is still quite properly deprecated.
But I remain convinced that those who are young and who should have the longest to live are the ones who have the most skin in the game, rather than those who have the most wealth. My guess is that if given responsibility they would, on the whole, rise to the challenge; if they act like children now, it might be because that is how they treated. Anyway, if they had a greater say they could hardly make a worse fist of it than their elders.
Personally, I’d restrict the franchise to those with Fs to give and something to lose if wrong – 1) property with a significant rates valuation, 2) some indication they know which way is up and 3) a general awareness that decisions have consequences, beyond wondering where one awakens.
That’s some weapons-grade irony, right there.
Think many British, with the benefit of hindsight, would have liked that for the EU referendum with those voting for Brexit tending to have much shorter future horizons and less skin in the game; voting for sentiments and beliefs.
Definitely, sixteen-year-olds should be given the vote. It is only the old white men approach that resisters, because they feel threatened.
Whilst i agree that young people (teenagers) are very much switched on now – at least some of them – I wonder if you are forgetting that 16 year olds and some 15 year olds fought in the second world war. I vividly remember walking around the Australian and Canadian war graves at El Alamein and seeing far too many crosses for young men aged only16. And some of these kids would have been fighting for many months.
But to return to the subject why should they not be able to vote.
I thought the same Mary. When researching my husband’s family I discovered his Great Grand Uncle had died at Ypres in WW1 at the age of 16. War records stated he was 18 but his Birth certificate proved otherwise. By the time of his death, I believe he’d been serving for at least a year, which horrified me and still does.
So yes, I agree with the suggestion that the voting age should be lowered to 16.
You’re also right that so many are “switched on” to what is happening around them – and for good reason I’d suggest.