The year is 2030. It is 50 degrees outside. The price of Petrol is $7.50 per litre, a price that seems rather conservative when compared with the $17.50 you pay for a litre of water. Australia is in an economic crisis as a result of excessive spending on the defence forces, the need for which increased due to a series of unwise international alliances. A haggard looking woman with a small child clinging to her arm struggles up the street to do her grocery shopping. She thinks back to the point where it all went downhill. 2011, when the government changed for the worse and a spineless warmonger was elected. She’d seen this coming. All of her friends had too. She’d known then that the outcome of the 2011 election would directly affect her own, and her children’s, futures.
If only she’d been old enough to vote.
Luckily, Australia’s future is not anywhere near this bleak. Yet the fact remains that the average age of a Member of Parliament is 50.6. Prime Minister Howard was still in office at age 68. This means that the decisions moulding our country’s future have been being made by men and women who have already entered the property market, schooled their children and invested their money. What is more, this means that most MP’s and possibly our current Prime Minister will be six feet under when the more long-term effects of their environmental policies become evident.
This is not to say that because of their age and stage of life these people do not care about Australia’s future. The Rudd government has made clear its intentions to secure a cleaner, greener future for our country, and so far, I am tentatively hopeful. This does not change the fact that a person who can foresee living through a future fraught with the threat of nuclear warfare, global warming and an increasingly unattainable property market will be a significantly more passionate advocate for change than someone whose place in that future will be pushing up daisies (if daisies grow in a 50 degree, drought ridden dystopia.)
The recent submissions to the 20/20 summit in Canberra that the legal voting age be lowered to 16 are a sign that the Rudd government is willing to consider the former. One of the key components of democracy is that all members of the society have equal access and power. In Australia, a sixteen year old can legally consent to sex. This means that at sixteen, the government considers young people emotionally and mentally able to understand and accept the responsibilities involved. The legalisation of abortion and the ‘baby bonus’ scheme are both topics that have featured in political debates in recent times. Potentially, these are also issues that can affect a sexually active sixteen year-old. It seems a contradiction that a government can deem someone mature enough to encounter life-altering issues like pregnancy, yet too immature to have a say on what options are available when and if a pregnancy eventuates.
In addition to being old enough to consent to sexual intercourse, sixteen year-olds participate in so many activities that deem them functioning members of society. A sixteen year old can work full-time, which means they pay taxes to a government they had no hand in electing. A sixteen year old can drive while accompanied, subjecting his or herself fully to traffic rules. A sixteen year old can be fined. A sixteen year old can be considered legally independent and offered certain welfare benefits accordingly. Most significantly, a sixteen year old in the year 2008 will be raising children and paying taxes and using hospitals in the year 2028, all while trying to clean up the mess we’ve made of the earth if the predicted global warming crisis continues unabated.
Let’s give them a hand in that future. At the very least, we’ll have someone younger to blame if we do end up blowing ourselves to smithereens.
