Australian Politics

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Push to lower Australia's compulsory voting age to 16 as advocate says youngsters feeling 'disenfranchised' (www.abc.net.au)

submitted 7 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:

At 16, you can learn to drive, open a bank account, get a job, pay taxes, be on the Organ Donor Register, and apply to join the army.

"We saw a massive amount of young people heading to the streets protesting, talking to their local MPs, posting on social media [about issues at the time]," she says.

Analysis of the 2022 federal election undertaken by the Australian National University shows that young people are drifting away from the major parties.

But apart from the Greens and a few independents, political parties today are coy about whether they support the concept of lowering the voting age.

The federal Labor government doesn't have a position on allowing 16-year-olds to vote, but Minister for Youth Anne Aly told the ABC it was important for young people to be engaged in politics as it had an effect on their lives.

Fifty-one years ago, Australia's voting age was lowered from 21 to 18 by Gough Whitlam, the Labor prime minister at the time, with bipartisan support.

The original article contains 817 words, the summary contains 169 words. Saved 79%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!