Prime Minister Chris Hipkins says he is personally in favour of 16 and 17-year-olds being able to vote but won't pursue the change.
It follows the release of the Independent Electoral Review's interim report this morning, which recommended lowering the voting age, lowering the MMP threshold, capping the value of donations, and introducing a four-year term.
But the ACT Party has condemned the report, saying the implementation of its recommendations would result in a "permanent left-wing government".
Asked about the recommendations on Tuesday morning, Hipkins said he believed 16 and 17-year-olds should be able to vote.
"I've met many 16 and 17-year-olds who are highly engaged, highly informed and [who] would make good informed decisions about how they vote."
Political reporter Cushla Norman takes an in-depth look at what this could mean for voters. (Source: 1News)
He said he understood due to the need for a "super-majority" - that is, the support of 75% of the House - for the change meant it was unlikely to pass.
"I don't intend to pursue it any further."
Hipkins also said he thought most parliamentarians supported a four-year term, and acknowledged they may "have somewhat of a vested interest in that".
He said it would have to be decided by referendum, something he did not have imminent plans for.
"We'll be clear on that before the election but a referendum would not happen in conjunction with this year's election."
He said he was "comfortable" with current donation declaration thresholds, but hoped to see discussion on who could donate.
Among the report's other recommendations were:
- Restricting political donations to registered voters rather than organisations, capped at $30,000 to each party and its candidates per electoral cycle, while reducing the amount that can be donated anonymously.
- Extending voting rights to all prisoners
- Holding a referendum on whether to extend the parliamentary term to four years
- Lowering the party vote threshold from 5% to 3.5%, while abolishing the one-seat threshold
- Requiring the Electoral Act to uphold the Te Tiriti o Waitangi and its principles, including establishing Māori governance over electoral data collected about Māori, and removing restrictions around when Māori can switch electoral rolls
- A re-write of the Electoral Act to make it "modern, comprehensive, and accessible".
ACT leader David Seymour said the report's recommendations were "plucked straight from the Green Party’s manifesto".
“This report could have been produced by left-wing activists trying to screw the scrum for a generation in favour of Labour and the Greens.
“Who on earth are the people on this panel? No one voted for them. Why should they get to decide what our political system is?"
The report's recommendations are open for public consultation, after which the review's panel will reconvene and release its final report in November. Circumstances vary on how each change would be made, but it is not automatic through the report's release.
Seymour said there was low support for lowering the voting age because "there are already far too many voters in New Zealand who don’t pay tax".
"We don’t want 120,000 more voters who pay no tax voting for more spending and bigger government.
“Taxpayer funding makes politics a closed shop where everyone’s an insider on the taxpayer’s teat. People should have to go out to the community and seek funding to contest political power. If they’re funded by the very institution they’re supposed to be holding accountable, that’s no longer true democracy."
He said New Zealand's electoral system benefitted from "very infrequent change".
"To change the electoral laws you have to have a problem to solve other than political parties’ fortunes. There’s no problem to solve here.
“The one bright spot is the recommendation for a referendum on the term of Parliament."
He said he had a bill to extend the electoral term to four years, as well as giving control of select committees to opposition parties.
“This would bring real scrutiny of legislation, minsters, and officials. Instead of facing a government-controlled member of the governing party, they would face a grilling from the Opposition.”
The NZ First leader said he was against the findings as "it doesn't make sense". (Source: Breakfast)
This morning, NZ First leader Winston Peters said a lower threshold for parties to enter Parliament would be "disastrous".
"You'll have far more parties in Parliament and then things will be going haywire, now we’ve got enough now. It's a fair system at 5%.
"A high threshold means stability — if you can’t crack it at 5% you don't deserve to be there. We know something about that," he said.
NZ First has been out of Parliament since receiving only 2.6% of the party vote in the 2020 election.
"As for 4 years [election terms], that was the only decent idea they had," Peters said.
The Opportunities Party leader Raf Manji welcomed the recommendation to lower the MMP threshold to 3.5% and abolish the "coat-tailing rule".
“The current 5% threshold is simply undemocratic. Our electoral system undermines the sacred principle that every vote counts - and at the last election 7.9% of voters were not represented in Parliament because they voted for parties who did not make the threshold. That must change.”
He said restricting political donations to registered voters and capping donations was "a great step to ensure that we remove the loopholes that have allowed businesses to donate, without the public knowing who is actually donating".
"However, The Opportunities Party would go further, advocating for all donations to be reported."
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