Are today’s teenagers politically aware wunderkinds on the frontlines of the climate crisis, underdeveloped thinkers with perpetually messy bedrooms – or – just people, with the same foolishness, foibles or ignorance as other members of the voting public?
Questions over teenagers’ decision-making abilities have been in the headlines this week, after New Zealand’s supreme court declared in a landmark ruling that the current voting age – 18 years old – was discriminatory against younger New Zealanders. In response, the government has pledged to introduce legislation to lower the age and for parliament to vote on it in the next six months.
