Lowering Australia’s voting age to 16 without fortifying civic foundations would be misguided | Intifar Chowdhury
Only once we invest in compulsory civics, media and digital‑literacy education across our secondary schools should we consider allowing younger people to vote
Every few years, Australia resurrects the idea of lowering the voting age to 16 – usually prompted by a campaign or because some other country (with a fairly different electoral context) is doing so. And every time, we fail to address the question of whether we are prepared as a nation; in my opinion, the answer is no.
It’s not that I’m philosophically opposed to enfranchising 16‑ and 17‑year‑olds. After all, democracy thrives on fresh voices. The hitch comes when you hand a driving licence to someone who has never sat behind a wheel. Without robust civic and media‑literacy education, and without any clear evidence that 16- and 17-year‑olds themselves demand this change, we’d be giving young Australians an Ikea flat‑pack democracy with no instruction manual.
Law (Australia) | The Guardian
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