Lowering the voting age to 16 would improve the health and wellbeing of young people, the Medical Journal of Australia (MJA) has suggested.
Independent MP Monique Ryan stood alongside youth advocates and medical professionals at Parliament House in Canberra on Wednesday, voicing her support for lowering Australia's voting age from 18.
“Australia's young people are facing a climate crisis, a housing crisis, a cost of living crisis and a HECS crisis,” she said.
“It would give young people who often feel excluded … a voice at the table in a way they don't have now.”
Participation in democracy is central to the Future Healthy Countdown 2030, which was published in the MJA on Monday.
It has identified eight policies to help address the many challenges young people face, from mental health issues, poverty and a lack of equitable education to inaction on climate change.
It states that political participation at different ages before the age of 25 is crucial for health: “promoting social inclusion, empowerment and equality, which are essential for mental and physical well-being”.
Ryan, a former pediatric neurologist, said young people have both the mental and emotional maturity to make a decision about who should govern them.
“The experience in other countries where the voting age has been lowered is that if you lower the voting age, you improve participation and understanding of the process,” she said.
In which countries is voting allowed under the age of 18?
If Australia were to change its voting age, the country would not be alone.
In 2007, Austria became the first country in Europe to lower the voting age to under 18.
Over the past decade, Greece, Scotland and Wales have followed suit.
Meanwhile, both Belgium and Germany have temporarily lowered the voting age to 16, so that young people can vote for the first time in June's parliamentary elections in the European Union.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer made lowering the age part of Labor's manifesto a few months ago, although he recently admitted the changes would not be implemented before next year's election.
Amelia Condon-Cernovs, 16, said these countries were proof that Australia was “falling behind”.
The Year 11 student is part of the Make it 16 campaign and says people her age already have “many of the same responsibilities as adults”.
“We can work and we are taxed. We can also join the military, we can consent to medical procedures and we can also face criminal charges in some states and territories,” she said on Wednesday.
“If young people can be sent to prison for their actions, they can also participate in democracy.”
She said lowering the age while students were in school would allow them to be guided through the process so they could vote on policies that mattered to them.
“I think it's time for politicians to really listen to young people, not just say they're listening, but actually prove they care and lower the voting age to 16.”
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