WELLINGTON (Reuters) – The New Zealand government has decided to withdraw a bill that would have permitted sixteen year olds to cast their votes in local government elections, if it had successfully been approved.
Following a late 2022 ruling by New Zealand’s highest court that the country’s current voting age of 18 was discriminatory, parliament was compelled to debate whether the age should be lowered.
The previous Labour government had previously rejected the idea of lowering the voting age to 16 for national elections, but had endeavored to enact a lower voting age for local government elections. However, this was not put into law prior to the government change late last year.
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has expressed that he has requested for the bill to be withdrawn, as the new National Party-led government does not support it.
“Worrying about implementing a new voting age regime would prove to be a costly distraction for councils who are already dealing with enough issues,” he stated.
The non-partisan organisation Make it 16, which advocates for lowering the voting age, has denounced the decision to not allow 16 and 17 year olds to have a say in their own rights as a “democratic outrage.”
“Democracy entails voters selecting their politicians, not the other way around,” they conveyed in a statement shared on X, formerly known as Twitter.
(Reporting by Lucy Craymer; Editing by Lincoln Feast.)
