‘The pandemic was this weird portal that showed us we didn’t need to live our lives the way we were living,” says Annabelle Parata Vaughan (Ngāi Tahu), who was studying politics at the University of Otago when the world slid into lockdown. “It halted many aspects of capitalism – you started working from home, you had rent freezes, pollution was decreasing.”
The pandemic highlighted things she and her peers believed were impossible. “We became motivated to take political action because we saw that systemic change was possible,” says Vaughan, who now has a masters degree and is the culture and political editor of Otago’s student magazine, Critic Te Ārohi.
This enforced change brought a reaction: under-25s turned out in the 2020 general election in rates never seen before. The Electoral Commission says the number of 18- to 24-year-olds who voted jumped by more than 43,000 compared to 2017, to 274,076. That’s an estimated 60.9% of eligible voters in that age group, compared with 50.1% in 2017 and 48% in 2014. The official turnout for all voters was 82.2%, the highest since 1999.
The youthful glow from the 2020 election can be attributed to many things. Bronwyn Hayward, professor of political science at the University of Canterbury, puts it down in part to controversial referenda being run at the same time – assisted dying and cannabis reform – and a series of school strikes over climate change in preceding years that mobilised youngsters. She adds that the Electoral Commission also made a concerted push to engage groups, such as under-25s, who don’t usually vote.
But many other factors may have fed into the upsurge. For example, MPs such as Chlöe Swarbrick and then prime minister Jacinda Ardern genuinely knew how to appeal to a young public. And context can play a part, too.
NZ Union of Students’ Associations national president Ellen Dixon says the election taking place while New Zealand and the world were still partially in lockdown meant much more focus on the political landscape. With work or studies curtailed and their social lives hampered by restrictions, young people had more time to think about the issues.
Mobilisation came not just from climate change. Black Lives Matter protests overseas gained traction here. Despite Covid-19 restrictions, thousands of New Zealanders marched at rallies in Auckland in June 2020 to protest against police brutality and the killing of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, by US police the month before.
This election, signs point to a similarly high turnout of young voters, with 64% of 18- to 24-year-olds enrolled by late-September, the Electoral Commission says.
Will this upwards momentum be reflected at the ballot box? Most of those who voted in 2020 are statistically likely to turn out again this year – the younger you are when you start voting, the more likely you are to vote for life, says the commission. But young voters spoken to by the Listener say there’s a chance enrolments will not translate into votes. Cost of living is very much top of mind, and in general, there’s a strong feeling of disillusionment and negativity about action on climate change and other social issues after the high hopes three years ago.
Vaughan says the world seems to have very quickly gone back to pre-pandemic ways. “We had so much hope in 2020, we really thought we could do it. But now we’re back to young people not being listened to or being crucified for wanting to lower the voting age or have affordable housing.”
Vaughan feels disheartened when looking at the candidates this year. In 2020, two women, Ardern and Judith Collins, were vying for the highest elected office. It felt like New Zealand was upholding its ideals and setting the tone for the world. This year, she isn’t so sure.
Dixon says it’s “very difficult to get to election-based conversations because we’ve had the move from the pandemic into the cyclones, and it’s given very few people, including politicians enough time to prepare for what type of political orientation they’re going to take”.
Dixon, a Massey University PhD candidate, spoke to the Listener as she was preparing to travel to Zambia for the Global Student Forum annual meeting. She worked for the Electoral Commission in 2020 and fondly remembers how young voters had the ability to focus on particular politicians and the strategies they were implementing. Many students were excited to cast a vote for the first time.
But there are many reasons young people may not be so enthusiastic this year, says Dixon. For a generation often described as chronically online, having to show up at a polling station can be a deterrent. Another factor is the failure of political parties to offer policies to address immediate needs such as the cost of living, she says. “We’ve seen that happen with young people before.”
Hayward is concerned that pre-election attack campaigns from all sides tend to suppress voter turnout. “For young voters, it can be off-putting.”
But, she adds, this election is shaping up to be unusual. “There’s everything to play for. When there’s a mood for change, it’s hard to say what will happen.”
18-year-old student Andre Fa’aoso can’t wait to vote for the first time. “It’s always meant a lot to me, the power of the vote.”
Politics has always been front of mind for Fa’aoso. He wrote about it for his Auckland high school magazine and attended Youth Parliament last year as a press gallery member. This cemented his career hopes of becoming a political journalist. He was offered a full-time cadetship across NZME, Newshub, Te Ao Māori News and Pacific Media Network but has accepted a full scholarship at Yale University. The high achiever still has his sights set on political journalism but says he has had mixed reactions from friends and peers when talking about politics. “I know I have a solid base of friends engaged in political discourse who will vote, like myself, and then others may need some more persuasion.”
That persuasion may come via schools, which now have a stronger focus on civics education and how to be an engaged citizen through their social studies curriculum. Ushered in last year, the updated curriculum covers New Zealand’s constitutional structure and voting, how to be an effective citizen in a liberal democracy, tolerating those with different views to your own, and getting involved in issues you feel strongly about.
“There’s always room for improvement but social studies is heading in the right direction,” Hayward says.
But civics education – or the lack of – is a common buzzword, one that’s often used as a counterargument to lowering the voting age. Hayward says the argument is driven by fear. “Being scared they’ll vote the wrong way isn’t a reason to disenfranchise them.”
There are now about 123,000 16- and 17-year-olds, she says, “and by the time they reach their 40s they will be living in a dramatically changed world. So, there’s a greater moral case for ensuring that we have a more inclusive decision-making process.”
Hayward sounds a note of caution about focusing too narrowly on civics, pointing to the polarisation occurring in the United States, where compulsory civics education exists alongside a struggle for harmony. “I was a child in the US for a while and I can still recite the pledge of allegiance. But we look at the States now and it’s on the verge of a breakdown around social consensus for their constitution.”
New Zealand now has the School Leavers’ Toolkit, released in 2019, “which was an important first step in the basics of paying tax, getting a loan and engaging in voting processes”, she says.
Fa’aoso, who was one of the 123,000 16- and 17-year-olds just a year ago, doesn’t attribute his political awareness to civics education. “The only true encounter I had with civics education was when the Electoral Commission came to our school in Year 13 to pre-enrol and enrol 17- and 18-year-olds to vote,” he says.
The same year the toolkit was released, a digital survey by charity Seed Waikato found 41% of 18- to 35-year-olds did not know how to cast a vote in the 2019 local body elections (though it’s known council elections don’t attract the same overall voter turnout as a general election).
Dixon says some of the students who say they don’t vote in general elections typically don’t vote in anything, “whether it be elections on campus or local elections”. She attributes that to not growing up in a voting culture – when your family or social group don’t vote, you’re less likely to.
It’s also uninviting when those who are putting themselves forward for leadership roles do not reflect your community, she says. “I think [that’s] been an underlying issue in student associations, local councils or government. People don’t see themselves in that leadership.”
Make It 16
But a growing number of young people are stepping up to the plate and making sure they’re seen as politically savvy. The move to reduce the voting age to 16 was a campaign formed out of the New Zealand Youth Parliament in September 2019. The Make It 16 group made a High Court bid, with the help of lawyers acting pro bono, to get a declaration that current legislation preventing 16- and 17-year-olds from voting was in breach of the Bill of Rights Act. Early judicial attempts failed, but Make It 16 received widespread coverage when, last November, the Supreme Court declared that preventing this age group from voting was unjustified age discrimination and in breach of the act.
Very soon after, the government introduced a bill to lower the voting age to 16 for local body elections. The Electoral (Lowering Voting Age for Local Elections and Polls) Legislation Bill is out for submissions until October 20.
Thomas Brocherie, Make It 16′s co-director, says, given this development, he wouldn’t be surprised to see a spike in the youth vote at the election.
Brocherie first got interested in politics in the 2016 US election. “It was literally everywhere.” He saw how much social media spreads the word on social issues. “Unfortunately, there is so much bad news everywhere on the internet and that’s something that’s really hard to avoid,” he says. “So it’s natural that I’ve become interested in what’s going on.”
Brocherie was in Year 10 last year and says the class did touch on civics in social studies, but there “still wasn’t great means for the teacher to engage us because it was information that we couldn’t apply to our lives for a good few years. That’s really where lowering the voting age should come in.”
He says if the voting age were lowered, engagement with students could start earlier. Building habits younger would lead to a longer-term rise in 18- to 24-year-olds voting.
Bronwyn Hayward hopes lowering the age for local body elections will lead to 16- and 17-year-olds voting in general elections. “There’s always a possibility that it will be stuck at local body elections but it’s unlikely,” she says, as a lower voting age is gaining traction around the world.
In last year’s local body elections, 42% of eligible voters aged 25 and under voted, a significant jump from 2001 when just 27% voted. Even so, this age group is the least likely to vote in local body elections – those aged 56 and older sit at 70-80%.
The upwards trend among younger voters could also increase the likelihood of younger mayors and councillors, especially considering one of the drivers to vote is seeing a candidate similar to oneself, ScienceDirect reported.
Time will tell whether the experience in Gore since the last local body elections proves this correct. Ben Bell, then 23, became the youngest mayor in New Zealand history after beating incumbent Tracy Hicks by 8 votes. All was not smooth sailing after the election, however, as reports surfaced of a breakdown in the relationship between Bell and district council chief executive Stephen Parry, and Bell faced calls for his resignation.
The matter was finally resolved in September, almost a year after the election, when Parry resigned. An off-putting environment for a young person, indeed, whether or not the inner workings of the council was a new, foreign beast for the fresh politician.
Student media
While Make It 16 takes it campaign to Parliament, other young people are working in journalism and wondering whether the media is serving younger audiences well enough, and as a result, whether young people have the means to get politically engaged.
At Otago, Vaughan says young people get their news from different outlets, as conventional sources are seen to be serving an older audience. Vaughan has written for Critic Te Ārohi on Labour’s “bread and butter issues”, neoliberalism’s impact on higher education, and the overturning of Roe v Wade in the US.
Vaughan and her editor, Fox Meyer, met Chlöe Swarbrick when the Auckland Central MP visited the university in July. They asked her the simple question, “Why isn’t politics fun?” Swarbrick agreed it wasn’t fun but stressed the need to celebrate small victories, such as joining a protest march, signing a petition or even backing an issue that leads to a bill being presented to Parliament.
“[Politics] is not an enjoyable experience a lot of the time,” says Meyer. “We’re a generation that’s found itself picking up the pieces of the past, trying to repair a bunch of systems that have been broken or exploited, which is exhausting, and you have all this media bombardment about how hopeless all this stuff is.”
It’s difficult to work up enthusiasm to participate in a system that you feel doesn’t work and isn’t fun, he says. The present-day voting experience contrasts with the 60s or 70s, when “you would get to go to these cool protests and be doing stuff that’s very visible and generating change that you can see.” Today, it’s commenting on a TikTok post from your bed.
Aside from Make It 16 forging a strong foundation for its future, the barriers to young people voting seem to be at an all-time high: offputting, harsh attack campaigns, candidates seen as uninteresting or unrelatable and an old-fashioned voting process among them.
But with democracy regarded as key to a politically healthy nation – and looking overseas to systems fractured by distrust – having New Zealand citizens of all ages exercising their right to vote seems never more vital.