Luxon calls on voting age to remain at 18

MPs will get the chance to decide whether to lower the voting age to 16.

National Party leader Christopher Luxon has called for the voting age to remain at 18.

It comes after the Supreme Court today ruled in favour of the Make it 16 group, which argued that preventing 16- and 17-year-olds from voting is 'unjustifiable discrimination' which is therefore inconsistent with the Bill of Rights Act. It followed unsuccessful cases in the High Court and Court of Appeal.

Luxon said a lower voting age is "not something that we support".

"Obviously, we've got to draw a line somewhere," he told reporters in Napier.

"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's just fine."

However, the Green Party is calling on the Government to take immediate action to lower the voting age.

Christopher Luxon in Napier.

“Young people deserve to have a say in the decisions that affect them, both now and in the future," the party's electoral reform spokesperson Golriz Ghahraman said in a statement.

She called today's decision in New Zealand's highest court "a testament to the hard work and passion of all the young people who fought tirelessly to uphold their basic right to have a say in how their country is run".

"The judgement of the court finds that Parliament has for decades been in breach of young people's basic human rights. Now is the time to do what's right and strengthen our democracy to include the voices of 16- and 17-year-olds."

Make it 16 campaign co-director Caeden Tipler said "lowering the voting age is the right thing to do".

Make it 16 campaign co-director Caeden Tipler said the court has granted the group a declaration of inconsistency, "which means the Supreme Court has said that a voting age of 18 is directly in conflict with our Bill of Rights Act".

They said today's decision is a "huge step forward for our campaign".

"We've known for a long time that not lowering the voting age is a human rights violation, but now we have the court backing."

Tipler said while today's decision "could have gone either way", the group were "super confident that lowering the voting age is the right thing to do and our confidence has never wavered throughout the whole campaign".

Parliament must now review the declaration of inconsistency, which is expected to take six months, they said.

"We're confident that Parliament, once they understand the reasoning for why we should lower the voting age, will do so."

Make it 16 campaigners pose for a selfie after the Supreme Court ruled in their favour.

They said it's possible 16- and 17-year-olds could be voting in the next general election in 2023.

"It would be the right thing to do. We know that not lowering the voting age is a human rights violation and that human rights violation should be amended as soon as possible."

Change may be "difficult", law expert says

Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Law at Otago University, Marcelo Rodriguez Ferrere, says the ruling won’t necessarily result in change.

“The Government has to respond to this court ruling by around April next year. Then the Government and Parliament can decide what to do in terms of changing the age if they’d like to do so."

He said changing the age is “pretty difficult”, requiring 75% of MPs to vote for a change or a referendum of the New Zealand public.

Ferrere said it may not have an impact on the election next year due to the timing.

“By the time we get the report in April it will be probably be too late to organise a referendum or even make a change to the Electoral Act before the next election.”

He described the ruling as “significant”.

“It does require a formal response by Parliament and New Zealand’s Government and that’s huge.”

He said it was impressive that the Make it 16 group took it all the way to the Supreme Court and won.

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