Kerre Woodham: Give me a competency test over an age limit for voting any day of the week

Now the news that the Supreme Court has ruled that the current voting age of 18 is inconsistent with the Bill of Rights came through late yesterday morning.

We had a little bit of discussion on it, and as expected it dominated the news and the rest of talkback for most of yesterday. Most people reacted as though 16-year-olds would now be running the country.

They bemoaned the ‘wokeism’ of the Supreme Court, but the court hasn't actually granted 16 year olds the right to vote. What it did say was that the voting age of 18 is inconsistent with the section of the Bill of Rights that said there must be freedom from discrimination on the basis of age.  

The thing that got me is that there seemed to be this attitude that young people are simply incapable of independent thought or analysis, or sensible decision making when it comes to voting.

You know, ‘16-year-olds can't even get out of bed in the morning’, and ‘anybody who had a 16 year old wouldn't want them voting’.

Have you listened to talk back? Have you listened to some of the views held by people well past 16 who are Ill-informed, misinformed and have completely the wrong end of the stick? 

People who are over 18, people who are over 30, people who are over 40, don't necessarily have a good grasp of politics either.  

The idea that 16 year olds are batty with mad ideas. Well, hello. You could say that about every voter.

I mean far from having an age limit, I would much rather see a competency test for all. It doesn't have to be a terribly sophisticated one. Just name the leaders of all the main parties or of all the political parties that have been in Parliament perhaps?

Explain the party vote. Name three issues that you're concerned about in the country at the moment. 

I mean it doesn't even have to be a terribly complicated competency test, but that's what I'd like to see. I'd be quite happy to lower the voting age to 16, provided everybody who registered to vote could pass that competency test. 

I just found it interesting listening to the comments about young people - and I'm like wow.

Some of them would be helpless and hopeless. Some of them would just be along for the ride. Some of them would be well researched; they would know exactly what was most important to them.

They would vote accordingly, just like people in their 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s.

You will find equally hapless individuals in all of those cohorts. Give me a competency test over an age limit any day when it comes to voting. 

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