Politics has traditionally been the domain of the ‘pale, male and stale’, but that could be about to change if a young senator gets his way.
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Western Australia Greens upper house member Jordon Steele-John has pushed to drop the voting age to 16, allowing almost 600,000 young Australians to engage in elections.
Mr Steele-John, the senate’s youngest member at 23, said he will introduce a bill to Federal parliament to lower the voting age from 18 to 16.
Young, female and engaged, year 11 student Molly Harris said she and her peers should have the right to influence election outcomes.
“By 16 we all know what we stand for, what we’d be willing to fight for and vote for,” she said.
“We have access to all the world’s information at the click of a finger and we have just as many informed decisions as adults do.”
Miss Harris was part of the Kinross Wolaroi School group that organised a ‘Yes’ vote same-sex marriage rally in Robertson Park in September.
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She recently returned from Melbourne where she co-organised a ‘March for Our Lives’ event in support of the Florida school students campaigning for tighter gun control.
Miss Harris said that while 18- to 25-year-olds are still under-represented in voter turnouts, there is a movement towards greater engagement by young people and that lowering the voting age might help this demographic be heard.
“It’s important for us to influence the future world that we’re going to live in,” Miss Harris said.
“I would hope that this change would make politicians pay attention to the future leaders.”
Orange councillor Stephen Nugent supports the idea of allowing 16- or 17-year-olds to opt in to vote, prior to compulsory voting at 18.
“These days 16-year-olds are interested in what’s going on in the world and interested in having their say,” he said.
“At 16 I think people are intelligent, developed and aware enough to make an informed choice and to make their own decision.”