Comment on Independent MP to push for lowering of Australian voting age
pineapple@lemmy.ml 1 week agoIf teenagers are well educated and know how to make a good decision that supports there views then I don’t see why they shouldn’t be able to vote.
Younger people voting for there future is better.
MisterFrog@aussie.zone 1 week ago
Education isn’t a pre-requisite for voting, but unless we’re planning on fundamentally changing how we treat 16 to 18 year olds (which I’m in favour of, by the way), I don’t see why 16 should be the new arbitrary age we choose.
Why not 14?
18 is the arbitrary age we’ve already chosen to confer adulthood.
And when I was 16, I felt much the same way. I had my opinions, and I wouldn’t have been against being given the vote. But we also don’t let 16 year olds drive. Should we let them do that too?
Honestly, I dunno.
16 year olds aren’t stupid, but we just gotta pick some arbitrary line where we think the average person has had enough life experience to be entrusted with voting.
And honestly, it’s probably a good thing for people to have the chance of being more numerate and literate via schooling in year 11 and 12, or in a trade or TAFE before they start voting.
Learning accelerates (at least, in my experience) a lot in those last years of secondary schooling.
I’m not necessarily against changing it. I just very dislike Monique Ryan because she hates working people (fact, not opinion, since she’s voted against criminalising wage theft), and think this is somewhat a distraction from the economic woes which this kind of ideology produces.