The UK is lowering the voting age to 16 — what possible reason could Australia have for not following suit? - ABC Religion & Ethics

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7 hours ago

At the next general election, the United Kingdom will lower the age of eligible voters from 18 to 16 — a reform that will give an additional 1.6 million British citizens the right to vote. When I heard about this change, it felt like a massive step in the right direction. Having worked with the campaign Make It 16, I have advocated alongside my peers for the Australian federal government to allow 16- and 17-year-olds to vote.
The campaign has attracted a range of responses, however. To many, it feels like a groundbreaking proposition — the vast majority of democracies, after all, set the voting age at 18 or above. Perhaps the UK's decision makes this reform seem a little less daunting, now that the list of nations with a lower age threshold (among them, Austria, Ecuador, Argentina, Malta and Scotland) has expanded.
I've worked with the Make It 16 committee since 2023. As a young person myself, I have always been passionate about the rights and voices of fellow youth, and I truly believe that the right to vote is an important way to uphold these entitlements. In Australia, and in many nations around the world, 16- and 17-year-olds work, pay taxes, stand up for issues they care about, make legal decisions for themselves and are in numerous ways treated as adults. Children as young as 10 can be held criminally responsible for certain deeds, but we still have to wait until we are 18 to be considered responsible enough to vote.
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer echoed this same sentiment, when he said of young people:
They're old enough to go out to work, they're old enough to pay taxes … and I think if you pay in, you should have the opportunity to say what you want your money spent on, which way the government should go.
I just missed out on voting in the recent federal election. My eighteenth birthday was only a few weeks after the 3 May poll and yet I have to wait another three years before I can have a say in the next federal election. You can imagine my frustration when my classmates at university and friends asked me who I was voting for, and I had to admit, 'I can't vote yet.'
In countries around the world, young are growing increasingly frustrated by our exclusion from democratic politics. We are disillusioned by our governments' lack of action on issues that affect us. And rather than giving us agency, we are handed the usual list of consolation prizes: 'Why don't you just protest? Or create petitions? Or email your local MP?' Well, many of us have tried these things.
Despite the fact that hundreds of thousands of Australian young people turned out onto the streets to call on the government to honour its obligations to the health of our planet, precious little progress on climate change policy has been made. I have sent dozens of emails to my local MP on a range of issues — most recently, Australia's response to the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza — only to receive an automated response or some perfunctory reply thanking me for getting in touch.
Protesters take part in the School Strike 4 Climate rally on 21 May 2021 in Melbourne, Australia. (Photo by Graham Denholm / Getty Images)
These avenues of activism clearly have not and cannot achieve the kind of change we are seeking. That is not to say we should not pursue change through these more direct means, but it is disingenuous to tell young people that they are any substitute for the ability to vote.
Take issues such as cost-of-living pressures, housing affordability and environmental sustainability — all of which disproportionately affect the younger demographic. As Monash University Professor Lucas Walsh wrote in the lead-up to the 2025 federal election:
Young Australians are inheriting not only the weight of greater voting influence, but also disproportionate challenges related to affordable accommodation, work and climate change.
According to Monash's 2023 Youth Barometer Survey, only 35 per cent of young people felt confident they would have a place to live in the coming year due to a rental crisis already at full steam. I'd be willing to bet that percentage is considerably higher in 2025. And then there is the prospect that the effects of climate change are likely to be irreversible by 2030. Our citizens and our very planet are becoming increasingly inhospitable to young people, and yet we continue to be denied the democratic mechanism to do anything about it!
Young people are growing tired of the usual excuses and threadbare alibis that are used to justify denying us the right to vote — most often based on the stereotype technology-addicted, lazy, indolent, immature teens who can't even be responsible for their own lives, let alone the wellbeing of our country and planet. But isn't this prevailing stereotype directly contradicted by the responsibility, the passion even, demonstrated by student organisations like School Strike for Palestine and School Strike 4 Climate?
Where we are affected by, and capable of having meaningful input on, a range of highly consequential issues, depriving young people the right to vote is not only undemocratic — it is cruel.
The UK is showing the Australian federal government how it can enhance and strengthen our democracy: by enfranchising young people. Monique Ryan, Independent MP for Kooyong, has pledged to introduce a bill to parliament lowering the voting age from 18 to 16. I would urge the government to give that bill the consideration it deserves. I would also encourage my fellow youth to continue campaigning for the issues they care about and for the right to have their voices heard.
Anhaar Kareem is an 18-year-old Egyptian Muslim woman living on Wangal Land in Sydney, and studying law and media at the University of New South Wales. She has worked with the Wellbeing Health & Youth Committee, Islamic Women's Welfare Association Youth Committee and the Make It 16 campaign.