Officials warn the Government's plan to leave the voting age for licensing trusts at 18 is discriminatory and will make voting unnecessarily complex – and they're backed up by an unlikely conservative voice from the deep south
Analysis: Invercargill's mayor is a beer man. "I do like a Speight's," he says. And when the 72-year-old went out to consult with young people on what they wanted from their city, he happily admits there were a few who laughed at how out-of-touch he was.
"They were really keen to have mocktails, and I don't even know what that is," says Nobby Clark. "But apparently it's a non-alcoholic cocktail. And quite a few of them were into it. And they want zero beers!"
With other councillors and staff, he approached young people in the new Invercargill Central mall, and then at the polytechnic. They surveyed more than 1,000 people aged under 30. "The big issue was the ability to have local bands playing in environments that were friendly, and didn't concentrate on alcohol, which is unique feedback that we've not had before," he says.
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Clark, who succeeded Sir Tim Shadbolt as mayor last year, is known nationwide for his conservative views. He called for censorship of offensive language in art and poetry (repeatedly using the n-word in a speech and subsequent interviews to 'make his point'). He's upset iwi with a council paper criticising an unequal focus on te reo Māori in naming public buildings, and thrown his weight behind controversial anti-co-governance speaker Julian Batchelor. He's criticised the Government for being "woke".
"Good politicians are polarising," he said during last year's council election campaign.
So, for a politician for whom diversity means being able to choose between lager, an ale and a stout down at the fishing club, perhaps his biggest political surprise is championing the right of young people to vote and be elected – even to liquor licensing trusts.
Local Government Minister Kieran McAnulty spoke to the first reading of the new bill, which would lower the voting age from 18 to 16, for council elections. He said it made just one distinction, for participating in elections under the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act.
"These are elections for licensing trusts and community trusts that are included in the triennial elections," McAnulty said. "In this case, the Government has decided to keep the age at 18 for standing as a candidate or voting in these elections. This lines up with the alcohol purchasing age of 18."
Licensing trusts were first established in the 1940s as part of the relaxing of prohibition in New Zealand. The trusts, numbering 30 at their peak, were a new way of licensing the sale and consumption of alcohol, promoted as a more responsible and accountable alternative to the private licensed sale of alcohol.
They distribute their profits back to their communities and are accountable through the election of their trustees/members.
But gradually, many have merged or been voted out of existence; the last to go were Parakai and Masterton (dissolved in 2016) and Ashburton (2021). Some of the more powerful licensing trusts that still survive are in west Auckland, and in Invercargill.
‘When you're putting people on boards for a statutory period of three years, you want people that may not be able to legally drink to still have some say about the strategic direction of the licensing trust and what they're going to provide for the future.’ – Nobby Clark, Invercargill mayor
Nobby Clark is critical of the bill. He says any such move needs to be accompanied by online voting (which it's not) and says the Government should be consistent in applying the lower voting age across the board (which it isn't).
That would mean applying it to Parliament, despite McAnulty's insistence that the support's not yet there to pass a change to the entrenched Electoral Act with the requisite 75 percent majority.
And it would mean applying it to licensing trusts, which have also been excluded from the law change before Parliament.
As part of Invercargill City Council's survey at the mall and the polytech, they talked with more than 1,000 people under 30. "I was staggered by the information that I got back," Clark says.
"These are the future citizens of our world. And they have a totally different perspective on the world than what the predominantly older people have that sit in residential houses and elect the council. So we need to engage young people, but we don't give them the tools that they want.
"They want to go places that have wifi, they want to be able to connect across the room with a cellphone, where you or I would walk across the room with a beer and talk to somebody."
The three big issues young people had highlighted were the need for improved youth mental health services, the lack of emotional safety for people from the rainbow community, and that their nightlife is not nightclubs or traditional pubs with loud music, expensive meals and alcohol.
"They want cheaper food and cheaper alcohol to be able to drink in a civilised way. They are more focused on cafes than they are on bars. And that was huge, because we've got a licensing trust.
"So when I told the licensing trust, they were really interested about that sort of feedback."
Under existing liquor laws, 16 and 17-year-olds aren't allowed to buy alcohol – so the Government has decided they shouldn't be allowed to vote for licensing trusts either, or be elected to them.
"I don't agree with that," Clark says. "When you're putting people on boards for a statutory period of three years, you want people that may not be able to legally drink to still have some say about the strategic direction of the licensing trust and what they're going to provide for the future."
They don't want big booze barns, he says. Instead they want licensed premises that also offer and promote mocktails and zero alcohol beers. "That sort of atmosphere changes the thinking of a city, and changes of thinking of licensing trust as well."
The Department of Internal Affairs, in advice to ministers, said that from an administrative viewpoint, having a different voting age for licensing trusts would increase the complexity of local election administration. That's because it would increase the number of permutations of voting papers that have to be printed, and mean electors who turn 18 in the two months between the closing of the roll and polling day would need to cast a separate special vote for the alcohol licensing trust election.
But more importantly, it failed to address the Supreme Court's concerns about discriminating against 16-year-olds, in breach of the Bill of Rights Act. Discrimination is legally allowed only the Government can provide a good reason – and in the case of buying alcohol, that's the added risk of harm to developing brains.
No such evidential grounds apply to barring 16 and 17-year olds from voting for licensing trusts, or being elected to licensing trusts. "This evidence does not indicate that 16- and 17-year-olds’ safety and wellbeing will be harmed if they vote or stand in alcohol licensing trust elections," says the officials' regulatory impact statement to Parliament.
"One difference is that 16- and 17-year-olds may be unable to effectively carry out the role if they cannot legally enter some licensed premises because of their age. However, this can be addressed through amendments to allow trust members to enter those restricted premises while carrying out their functions."
Act MP Simon Court spoke in Parliament against the bill to lower the voting age, pointing out that it didn't change the age for electing members to an alcohol licensing trust, or to serve as jurors. "It's incoherent legislation that doesn't address a policy problem that itself is not adequately explained," he said.
