Last year, the Supreme Court declared the voting age of 18 is inconsistent with the Bill of Rights. File photo. Photo: RNZ
Campaigners for lowering of the voting age to 16 say the government is denying them human rights by delaying changes until the next term of government.
The move is part of the big policy bonfire lit by Prime Minister Chris Hipkins, scrapping, delaying, or altering policies as the government focuses on cost of living issues.
Late last year, the government announced plans to introduce a bill on lowering the voting age, after the Supreme Court declared the voting age of 18 is inconsistent with the Bill of Rights.
While the bills to lower the voting age have already been drafted, it would require 75 percent of MPs' support to get the one on general elections to pass.
At Monday's post-Cabinet briefing, Hipkins said it was clear they did not have the required support, and therefore the bill would not pass if put through now.
"I don't intend to progress a bill that's doomed to fail, because ultimately that would be an expensive exercise to simply make a political statement and I'm not willing to do that."
Instead, the government has committed to a parliamentary vote on lowering the voting age for local elections only, which does not need to meet that majority threshold, and that is set to be progressed by the next Parliament.
Make It 16 co-director Sanat Singh told Morning Report they understood the reasons behind the decision and the need to prioritise major challenges facing New Zealanders, but democracy and decision-making were "bread and butter" issues too.
"When you have 16 and 17 year olds out there who are also being bitten by the cost of living crisis, who are out there working full-time jobs to support their families, who are out there dealing with a large scale mental health crisis, who are out there living through this climate crisis right now, we think the way we make decisions for them might not just be working well enough."
Singh believed politics and the upcoming general elections also had a hand to play in the decision made on Monday.
"You've got to ask yourself why is it always young people that tend to get sidelined when political choices have to be made and it's because we don't have the electoral power to say that someone should be representing our interests, it's as simple as that," he said.
"The balance of power in our electorate is shifted towards older voters, more conservative voters, that's statistically true, and what happens there is by lowering the voting age, at least we have a little bit of a balancing act here."
On the other hand, the group was happy with the moves to introduce legislation to lower the voting age for local elections, Singh said.
"When you have the mayor of our biggest city in Auckland proposing to cut millions of dollars in fundamental youth services, and when you have some of the lowest voter turnout in local elections in decades, there's a clear sign here that something needs to be done in order to make sure that, not only are youth voices represented at the local government level, we're doing enough to make our local government systems work for everyone."
Before the local body elections last year, more than 70 elected representatives signed a letter to Parliament in support of lowering the voting age.
Once 16- and 17-year-olds could vote in local body elections, elected representatives and the public would recognise the good outcomes of that change, he said.
"We believe that's the door that's going to get us through to general elections as well."
