Joe Hildebrand opinion: Teen voting plan gives power to the pre-aware

News the voting age would drop to 16 in the UK was met with furious agreement by leftie pollies here. Joe Hildebrand explores why they think it’s a good idea to let those who can’t drive a car or buy a beer vote.

There is a famous quote attributed to everyone from Winston Churchill to Otto von Bismarck that goes something like: If you’re not a socialist at 20 you have no heart; If you’re still a socialist at 40 you have no brain.

Having been a socialist at 20 and very much not one at 40, I can confirm that whoever said it, it is true.

The message is obvious. When you are young and inexperienced with a brain that has not yet fully developed, you will naturally be drawn to simple and idealistic political ideas.

As you get older and wiser, you realise these ideas are often either idiotic or downright dangerous.

Although, as the caveat clearly states, that is only if you have a brain. And it is clear from the debate about giving 16-year-olds the vote that this is by no means an entry level requirement for modern politics.

As has made headlines around the world – which again you might think was a warning sign – the UK Labour government has announced it will lower the voting age to 16 at the next general election.

UK’s Labour Party has announced it will lower the voting age to 16. Picture: Leon Neal / AFP

This means that people who are legally prohibited from driving a car, buying a beer or even purchasing a lottery ticket will be able to elect the people who make those laws.

As you can see this line of reasoning is already going swimmingly well, which is why one response to the announcement was simply “God help us all.”

And needless to say the Greens and the Teals have rushed to demand that Australia do the same thing, which only goes to prove that 16-year-olds are not the only ones with underdeveloped brains.

Indeed, if I was my 16-year-old self, I would have thought this was a fantastic idea, which is further proof of how completely crazy it is.

Of course left-wing politicians are keen to lower the voting age – because they think it will benefit them, with young people overwhelmingly skewed to the left of politics.

Recent polling has found fully half of those aged 18-34 think that socialism is a good idea – perhaps because the Soviet Union collapsed before they were born.

And presumably this is why UK Labour ended up with the pledge in its election manifesto, presumably the work of the crazy Corbynistas who still control swathes of the party’s rank and file. But it is here that the alarm bells should be ringing like Big Ben.

Because where is Jeremy Corbyn right now?

Oh that’s right, he is a Labour rat now running as a socialist independent against the party he used to lead.

Former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn addresses those who took part in the National March for Palestine. Picture: Leon Neal/Getty Images

Thus UK Labour’s move will likely cannibalise its vote as woke Glastonbury-goers turn out for far left pro-Palestine parties that already got a foothold in the last poll.

Likewise the Greens and the Teals will appeal to teenagers here because, much like teenagers themselves, they don’t have to pay the bill for their own existence.

They can promise whatever they want and then just shrug their shoulders when it’s time to deliver because they don’t have to balance the books.

Despite a landslide victory at the last election, UK Labour is facing a massive threat at the next one – not from the Conservatives but from the even more right-wing Reform party.

Is there anyone apart from 40-year-old socialists who seriously thinks the way to avoid this potential catastrophe is to shift Labour even further to the left?

By contrast Australian Labor achieved its historic election victory this year by sticking squarely to the centre.

Monique Ryan plans to introduce a bill that will aim to lower the voting age. Picture: Tony Gough/ NewsWire

While I know many on the right see the Albanese government as wildly left wing, it is clear the broader Australian public sees things differently.

Indeed, the truly crazy left thinks Labor has lurched massively to the right, a sentiment overwhelmingly driven by young activists.

And again, 30 years ago I was one of them.

But that was not a reason for me to get the vote. It was a reason for me to grow up.

And here we come to the crux of the idiotic argument that 16-year-olds face barriers to participating in democracy.

What barriers?

They don’t have to get a job or a degree or even finish high school.

All they have to do is literally just stay alive for two years and they can have all the democracy they want for the rest of their lives.

It’s about as low a threshold as you can get.

In fact there are already plenty of Greens and Teals in the parliament to prove it.

Originally published as Joe Hildebrand opinion: Teen voting plan gives power to the pre-aware