A Lower Voting Age !

Older Australians may remember when the " age of maturity " was set at twenty-one.  For most young people, that was the legal age that allowed them free entry into pubs and the right to consume alcohol but it also was the age that they emerged from the strict control of their parents.  Both genders required parental permission to marry before that age.

All that changed in 1974 and that was primarily because of the Vietnam war.  Australia had conscription and at age eighteen all young medically fit men were required to be entered in a lottery in which a portion were required to undertake military service.   It seemed incongruous that an eighteen year old should be compulsorily required to wear a uniform, be handed a gun and sent to fight a foreign war, and yet not be entitled to drink alcohol, marry or have a vote on the legislation that required him to undertake that duty.


The law was changed and the age of maturity was lowered to eighteen., and along with access to alcohol that change included the requirement that eighteen year olds would be legally required to cast a vote in all Federal, state and council elections.  Eighteen became the age when young people could legally sign off on all manner of legal documents and become fully liable for the obligations such contracts empowered.

Constitutional law experts are now arguing that the voting age should be lowered to sixteen.  It is not suggested that all sixteen year old citizens should automatically get the vote, but that should be granted on a voluntary basis for those who choose to apply.  Proponents of change argue that people under eighteen can leave school, get a job, pay taxes, become a parent and join the Australian defence forces, but are denied a say in the laws they are required to obey.

Such a law change could have unexpected consequences.  If a person is granted the vote at age sixteen, they would automatically have the right to be elected to parliament at that age.  Would a sixteen year old seated in the lower house or as a Senator in the Senate have the maturity to decide the legislation that is decided in those chambers ?

Some would argue that those younger than eighteen have scant knowledge of the parliamentary process, but that also applies to many older folk that the law requires to cast a vote on election days.  The vote is a constitutional mandate rather than a test of intelligence. That vote is still required of those who lack the ability to sign their own name and sign documents by simply " making their mark "

This is a matter that all the political parties will approach with caution.  There is already a lobby agitating for the compulsory vote to be to be made optional, as is the custom in most of the rest of the world.  Unfortunately, in some elections the decisive vote comes from such a small voting base that the outcome can not be considered the true intention of the electorate. This Australian vote is intended to ensure that the nation gets the government they deserve by making electing it to office compulsory.

It certainly sounds reasonable than if a person younger than eighteen is sufficiently interested to go to the trouble to apply to be registered on the voting roll that should be a valid reason for that request to be granted.  Simply  lowering the voting age could bring a backlash that extends the work of the Electoral Commission in following up on voters who failed to record a vote on voting day.