New Zealand Supreme Court Rules Voting Age of 18 is Discriminatory in the Country: The highest court in New Zealand has ruled that the country’s voting age is discriminatory. To lower the voting age from 18 to 16, the advocacy organisation make it 16 in 2020 filed the lawsuit.
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The country’s Bill of Rights, which grants persons the right to be free from age discrimination at the age of 16, was deemed by the Supreme Court to be in conflict with the present voting age of 18, which is 18. The group argues there is no reason to stop 16 year olds voting when they can drive, work full-time and pay tax.
What Others Are Saying:
Political parties in New Zealand have mixed views on the subject.
The Green Party wants immediate action to lower the voting age to 16, but the largest opposition party, the National party, does not support the shift.
“Obviously, we’ve got to draw a line somewhere,” National party leader Christopher Luxon said. “We’re comfortable with the line being 18. Lots of different countries have different places where the line’s drawn and from our point of view, 18 is just fine.”
The centre-right National party opposes the move, while the Labour party is yet to state whether it would support a change in voting age or not.
After the decision, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern stated that she personally favoured lowering the voting age to 16, but she noted that “it is not a matter merely for me or even the government, any change in electoral law of this sort requires 75% of lawmaker approval.”
