Young Liberals reject Greens Party self-interested voting age move

The Young Liberal Movement of Australia today reiterated its support of Australia’s existing voting legalisation and support keeping the voting age at 18.

The support for our current laws comes as the Federal Greens Party ‘Youth’ spokesperson Stephen Bates said the Greens would re-introduce a previously failed bill to reduce the voting age in elections to 16.

Clark Cooley, Federal President of the Young Liberals said, “At best this proposal is a poorly designed attempt at gaining media headlines, at worst it’s an attempt by the Australian Greens to manipulate our strong democratic voting laws to increase the vote share of the Greens political party.”

Mr Cooley continued, “Overwhelming, evidence demonstrates that a change in the voting age would not increase political participation. This attempt to change the laws to suit their political agenda shows the Greens Party as cynical and self-interested.”

Mr Cooley concluded, “The Young Liberal Movement champion and applaud the political involvement of young people as being critical to the functioning of our democratic system. However, we completely reject the notion that young Australians are not given a voice in the Parliament. Young people have never been more represented in the Federal Parliament, or respective State and Territory Parliaments.”

ENDS

The Young Liberal Movement is the youth wing of the Liberal Party of Australia, open to anyone aged between 16 and 31 years. Our Movement is a centre-right, mainstream political organisation with a political philosophy focussed on limited government power, low taxes, individual responsibility, a focus on the family and a strong belief in rewarding initiative and private enterprise.