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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 04 Hansard (Wednesday, 31 March 2004) . . Page.. 1458 ..

However, I do want to make a comment here. I have spoken at a couple of schools about this over the years and I know that teachers are a little bit concerned when this Assembly jumps up and says they now have to teach something else. I have certainly had that response when I have spoken at schools and to classes at schools about electoral issues. I have spoken to schools on a number of occasions about lowering the voting age; as Ms Dundas said, we have had legislation to lower the voting age. But we need to make sure that we respect the fact that teachers already have a very heavy load in terms of what they are dealing with in curricula. So, while I acknowledge the importance of civics education, I think we have to consult the teachers and the AEU about what this means for their workload.

When considering young people and enrolment, another important issue to think about is who has difficulty in accessing the electoral system. Homeless young people, for example, who have no fixed address can slip through the programs of the Electoral Commission to encourage them to enrol. With no fixed address it is more difficult to enrol. This means that for some young people in Canberra it is difficult to enrol and therefore participate in the electoral system that represents them. It should concern us that homeless people may have reduced rights in terms of participating in civic life in Canberra. I am pleased to support each of Ms Dundas’s amendments. I am glad she has added that the ACT government should consider increasing the funding to the commission to enable them to undertake effective programs to encourage younger people to enrol and to educate them about the electoral system.

Ms Dundas’s amendment also asks the government to conduct an investigation into the possibility of lowering the voting age in the ACT. I introduced a bill in 1996 that would have lowered the voting age to 16. Unfortunately, there was not support for the bill in 1996. I remember at the time that Young Labor were certainly lobbying the Labor Party to get behind that. But apparently they were not successful. I do not know currently what Young Labor are doing because I have not talked to them more recently about it, but it is fine for the Assembly to be thinking again about who we include as citizens and I am pleased to see that the Democrats have joined us in the push to lower the voting age.

Children and young adults have very few avenues to participate in decisions made by political institutions, despite the fact that children have quite different needs and views from those of older people. Education, youth, recreation, employment and the environment are some of the key issues that young people want to have a greater say in. Young people are also our future; they have good ideas and they should be listened to. They contribute to our society economically in sports and in the arts. If young people are so fundamental to the future of our community, they deserve to have a say. The key principle of democracy is that people affected by rules should be able to participate in changing them. Voting is one of the most fundamental democratic rights and it is time that young people under the age of 18 were included in our political institutions.

When examined in detail, arguments against lowering the voting age are usually not strong at all. We have a competency based argument, which does not apply unless you want to have an elitist system of voting. We all know that initially only landholders could vote. We could look at that issue again, I suppose. On the question of responsibility, some people even argue that if you do not pay tax you should not be able to vote. That is similar to the argument about landholders in a way. That would rule out a

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