Kāpiti Coast backs Make It 16

The Kāpiti Coast District Council is the second council in the Wellington region to endorse the Make It 16 campaign that wants the voting age lowered to 16.

The motion by PaekākārikiRaumati ward councillor Sophie Handford was passed 6-3 yesterday. One councillor abstained and one was absent.

It means the council will lobby the Government to make the change to voting age eligibility in time for the 2025 local elections and to provide civics education in secondary schools.

‘‘This is our opportunity . . . to recognise the importance to our young people here on the Coast to give them the opportunity to have a say in decisions which create the future they’ll be inheriting,’’ Handford said.

The Supreme Court recently ruled that the current voting age of 18 was unjustified discrimination, on the basis of age, under the Bill of Rights Act. The Government then proposed to lower the voting age.

Caeden Tipler, a co-director of Make It 16, which took the case to the Supreme Court, urged councillors at the meeting to vote for the motion, saying Parliament would be looking at the views of

local government. ‘‘Human rights issues should not be popularity contests,’’ they said.

Handford said the motion was based on kōrero (talks) with young people from the district’s

taki, Paraparaumu and Kāpiti colleges and with members of the Kāpiti Coast Youth Council.

‘‘It’s an unjustified breach of their rights that they currently don’t have the opportunity to do that through voting.’’

Paraparaumu ward councillor Glen Cooper later moved to adjourn Handford’s motion until the Independent Electoral Review Panel returns its interim report in May next year, saying it was ‘‘premature’’ for the council to vote on ‘‘the biggest constitutional issue [it] has ever voted on’’ without public consultation. It was defeated.

‘‘As a highly technical and constitutional issue, I think it deserves a little bit more thought than throwing it on the table,’’ Cooper said. ‘‘It locks us in a submission before we’ve heard the evidence-based review.’’

Mayor Janet Holborow, who seconded Handford’s motion, called it a ‘‘principle vote’’ and said she believed councillors were elected not only to run an organisation but also to express their principles. ‘‘It’s something we decide to do to support a certain cause or kaupapa and use our influence that we have been elected to use to progress society in a way that we think it should progress. It doesn’t need to be consulted on,’’ she said.

The Porirua City Council voted to support a similar motion last week.

Wellington City’s mayor, Tory Whanau, and council chief executive Barbara McKerrow have sent a letter to the Independent Electoral Review Panel saying voting rights should be extended to 16- and 17-year-olds.

Changes to the voting age at local body elections would require a legislation change with a 51% majority at Parliament.

A supermajority, or 75% of MPs, is needed to change the voting age for general elections.

‘‘It’s an unjustified breach of their rights that they currently don’t have the opportunity to do that through voting.’’ Councillor Sophie Handford