Cate. welcome to the program Kia ora. Thank you for having me.

Okay, let's talk about

lowering the age to 16 and 17-year-olds, why does it make a difference whether six whether
you vote, say you start to vote at 16 instead of 18? Yeah, well, I think there are lots of great
reasons why we should lower the voting age to 16. On one of the most significant for me, is
that there are a lot of long term issues currently being debated in parliament that will impact
young people the most. So I think it's the right thing to do to give young people a say on
these issues. Don't you think, though, that there's a risk that young people would be more
susceptible to personality politics, so election bribes? I don't think that's true at all. I don't
think 16 and 17 year olds will be any different to any other age group. In this regard. We
wouldn't be the first country in the world to lower the voting age to 16. And we've got data
from overseas that tells us that lowering the voting age is the right and successful thing to
do. 16 and 17 year olds turn out to vote in higher rates and 18 to 25 year olds, 40% of 16
and 17 year olds vote in a way that's different to their parents and countries like Scotland
and Wales that already have that voting age. If so, how confident are you that the 16-17 year
olds here and old hardware would do the same would be independent enough to cast the
vote based on what they want instead of say, copying the appearance? Look, I'm extremely
confident in that regard. Like goers has said, you know, 80,000 young people turned up to
march in 2019 for the school strikes for climate and that's not the first young people led
movement we've seen an aoutearoua from the Polynesian Panthers to for the culture to
school strike for climate, we've seen young people engage in the government and engage in
our democracy for what they believe in already cate, you know, we don't have civics in
schools already. Our Kiwi 16 year olds informed enough to vote, do you think? Look, I think
anyone is capable of voting for what they believe in, you don't suddenly know everything
about civics once you turn 18. And actually lowering the voting age to 16 is a great prompt
for civics education in schools. So although and make it 16. We're supportive of better civics
education in schools, we know that will come as a result of lowering the voting age when
young people feel like these issues more directly affect them, make it 16 took this issue to
the Court of Appeal, but it was dismissed. Did you consider giving up? No, we've never
considered giving up. We have a broad campaign beyond the courts themselves. But
actually, we're incredibly hopeful from a Court of Appeal, because although we didn't get that
declaration of inconsistency we were after the Court of Appeal did say that a voting age of
16 is unjustified age discrimination. And that has given us grounds to go to the Supreme
Court in July. Well don't Kate. Now that case also found that while the current voting age is
inconsistent, why do you think the court was wrong in that respect? Well, I think we do know
for a fact that the Bill of Rights protects 16 and 17-year-olds, as well as those over the age of
18. So actually, a voting age of 18 is inconsistent with the Bill of Rights Act. And that's why
we are going to the court and when we've seen the public agree with us, we have an
ongoing petition that's getting engaged over 5000 people and continuing to gain more every
day and just heard before during the break that you will be golriz as youth MP this term. How
excited are you about that? Isn't that a coincidence? We have you both today on the show?
Yeah, well, I think it makes sense as co-director of Make It 16 I'd want to engage with a
politician who's trying to lower the voting age. I mean, obviously, that's a reflection of my
personal views, but within our campaign, we have members who support different political
parties across the political spectrum. Okay, well, all the best for the future. Thank you very
much for joining us. Thank you.