New Zealand’s supreme court has forced voting age on to agenda, exposing absurd arguments for status quo

The lobby group seeking to lower New Zealand's voting age secured a victory when the supreme court ruled that the current law amounts to age discrimination. Photograph: Andrew Warner/AP

Names can be deceiving. While many Kiwis might assume that our supreme court is in fact supreme – able to strike down laws and change the country – it is not. Like the UK, parliament in New Zealand is supreme. Even if the courts decide parliament’s laws disagree with the Bill of Rights Act, the democratic body is able to tell the court to stick to complex tax cases, thanks. Nothing handcuffs parliament, nothing is above it.

Yet the supreme court was recently handed new power to force issues on to the agenda of parliament, and has almost immediately used it to blow up the long-running debate about youth voting, exposing the silly positions of most involved.