Opinion: Lower the voting age? Yes!

Local Government New Zealand thinks if we’ve got younger people involved, more people of all ages would vote. Photo / File

Is a 16-year-old or a 17-year-old capable of deciding who they think should be on their local council? Of course, they are. Just like I think they’re capable of deciding who runs the country.

But this is about local government because the outfit that represents councils, Local Government New Zealand, has come out and said that it thinks the voting age in local body elections should be 16. And I couldn’t agree more. I’m right behind it.

Local Government New Zealand also thinks we should be extending council terms to four years, instead of three years. And it’s on the money there too, as far as I’m concerned. And, again, I think that should be the case for central government too.

But let’s focus on whether or not 16- and 17-year-olds should be allowed to vote in their local elections. The 16- and 17-year-olds who are going to live with the big decisions our local councils make.

Because it’s one of the things to come out of Local Government New Zealand’s review of the local government system, which has identified a need for major change.

It’s no surprise that it thinks major change is needed. My take on why it thinks that, is that local government is responsible for so much in our daily lives, but so many people either don’t trust their local council or aren’t interested in their local council.

There’s a huge gap between the influence local councils have on people’s lives, and how much people trust their councils.

And Local Government New Zealand thinks part of the problem is that young people feel excluded from some of the big decisions that local councils make.

Which, when you think about it, is only going to mean less and less people voting in the local elections because if you don’t feel like you’re being listened to when you’re 16, chances are you’re not going to have much confidence that you’ll be listened to when you’re 18.

This is why I’m fully behind the idea of letting 16- and 17-year-olds vote.

Now I know some people will be thinking ‘why on earth would we want those awful kids causing some of the problems around town at the moment to vote?’.

But do you really think they’re the ones who would be remotely interested in voting? Of course they wouldn’t.

The ones who would, would be the 16- and 17-year-olds who constantly blow me away with how insightful and thoughtful they are.

You can probably think of a 16-year-old or a 17-year-old you know who is a complete bozo. And when you think of them, the idea of giving them the chance to vote might be the last thing you’d want.

But bozos aren’t limited by age. There are bozos of all ages. Like the people who are legally entitled to vote now - you and me - there are bozos among us who, let’s face it, have no idea. But they can still vote.

One of the benefits Local Government New Zealand sees in letting 16- and 17-year-olds vote, is that we’d likely see more 18-year-olds and 19-year-olds voting. In fact, Local Government New Zealand thinks if we’ve got younger people involved, more people of all ages would vote.

Which has to be a good thing, surely, when you consider how low voter turn-out is for local body elections. It’s not just low, it’s pathetic.

In 2007, Austria became the first country in the world to allow 16- and 17-year-olds to vote in the national elections. And, at the time, a study was done and found that they were just as capable as older voters of working out which candidates best represented their values.

What’s more, the study found that the 16-year-olds and 17-year-olds’ knowledge of the political process was pretty much on a par with older voters. And there was also evidence that more people were voting, as a result of the change.

So why wouldn’t we do the same thing here?