Evan Thornley has a fascinating proposal: giving the parents of children under 18 the right to vote on their behalf.
As a child-free inner suburbanite, it seems to me that the child-inflicted already get a disproportionate influence on our body politic, by their concentration in the outer-suburban mortgage belts that decide elections. Certainly, the past ten years have encouraged a steady transfer of funds through the never-ending collection of baby bonuses, family tax benefits, parenting allowances, private school funding, the have one for the country bribe. And you barely hear a sentence out of the major parties that doesn’t include the word “family”. There are also obvious practical difficulties - which parent gets to exercise the additional vote, for instance? Thornley’s claim that change would “…break down short-term thinking and encourage thinking about cross-generational issues such as global warming, education funding and job creation” is also open to question. Aren’t those outer-suburban marginal seats the ones that swing most strongly according to the economic cycle?
All that said, the idea has some intuitive appeal. What do you all think?
Completely opposed. People had to struggle to get rid of plural voting in the late 19th and early 20th centuries - extra votes for owning property, being a University graduate etc. If you gave people with kids an extra vote, where do you draw the line in terms of other purported qualifications? Liberal democracy is founded on equality.
It has no intuitive appeal whatsoever. None. Expect appealing to my desire to slap Evan Thornley.
In the story he says something like “families pay, but don’t get a say” which as you point out could not possibly be more like complete nonsense.
I hope he said it in a blue skies, publicity for the think tank, hey just putting it out there kind of way.
JHC almighty, no no no. What a terrible idea. Suffrage is suffrage is suffrage, and you either vote on your own behalf or not at all.
Tabloid TV (and print) would have a field day - you mean the welfare mums could get a plasma screen and an extra vote per child?
Seriously, apart from the question of which parent casts the vote, one area where I can see it becoming tricky is with adolescents approaching voting age. Parents cast a vote on behalf of their child, but what if you have a 17 year old who holds clear and strong political views that don’t match his or her parents’?
You could also argue that by raising future voters, parents are already making an additional contribution to decisions about the future - it’s just a more long-term contribution.
As if most kids don’t get their political ‘ideas’ from their parents anyway. No doubt that’s the idea.
I am so with Amanda on the slapping Evan Thornley thing.
Graham Young:
http://ambit-gambit.nationalforum.com.au/archives/002179.html
“Procreate early, vote often” is how he characterises it.
What Laura said. There is no good reason to believe that parents would cast those extra votes according to either the wishes or the actual interests of the children. And there is no particular reason to believe that those who started breeding early and often would be more disposed to or more capable of, making enlightened long-term choices when voting than either those who wait until the time is right and who reproduce in modest but sustainable proportions, or those who, whether through choice or the chances of life, don’t reproduce at all.
Or in my case, a 13, 14 and 16 year old at the time of the 1972, 1974 and 1975 Federal elections, in each of which my mother would have cast a rusted-on Liberal vote on my behalf.
What a fucking awful idea. In a society trending towards fewer children per family, it would straightforwardly privelege a dwindling minority of bunny rabbits, fucking and squeezing their way to extra votes for whoever promises the most middle class welfare.
I’m appalled.
There is meat on this bone, I’m not sure that the suggestion is fully thought out. As we move into a more elderly population there is a trend that I heard reported from Germany where you start to get environment, town planning, and behavioural decisions based on an elderly view point of the world. For instance elderly people have no need for playgrounds so playgrounds become high rise apartments. Elderly people feel threatened by too much fast movement happening around them so rules such as no running on footpaths or no ball games start to become more common. Whole neighbourhgoods become child unfriendly. But as Hans Rosling has demonstrated from the UN statistics there is a wave of older people in the process of moving through that will take 40 years to pass, at which point the earth’s population will reduce to a new balance of children to adults at the lower population. The interests of the future young must be protected as they will be the ones putting our aged bodies to bed in twenty years time whilst nurturing the future generation. If we turn everywhere into a New York style lanscape simply to make more money for our momentary gain then the following generations are going to be a very disturbed bunch of people. Having said all of that, I doubt that giving them a proxy vote would achieve the objective of protecting their interests. I give my 2 girls the opportunity to influence my vote to get them involved in the process, but ultimately I make the decision.
A similar process can be observed in America (where the demographics are somewhat different - but it’s really about the white middle class) where you get older people refusing to support bond issues for school funding (many such decisions are made at the local level in the States) but what you really have here is a failure of empathy, and I think that there’s no guarentee Thornley’s proposal would actually encourage other and future regarding voter behaviour. That has to be built by some other means. And I think the objections on democratic grounds are very strong indeed.
Some of these comments suggest another unfortunate side-effect which would be the greatly augmented antagonism between childless and child-endowed persons.
Would I get and extra half a vote for my cat? What about if I had some embryos tucked away int he freezer, do they count?
By all means lower the voting age, but this is ridiculous and patently undemocratic.
Appalled, I tells ya!
There are, as Mark said, a whole swag of reasons you could argue for extra votes for certain folks. The whole bloody meaning of pluralism is to chuck that shit out.
APPALLED!!!one!!!11!
Lowering the voting age to 15 but non compulsory till 18 would be far more productive. The parties would really campaign to attract and get out the vote amongst younger voters.
Two words, one syllable: idiotic and discriminatory.
BTW, I’m not having 15 years old voting. They are not even capable of saying excuse me on the tram. And they don’t contribute to society.
Are you joking?
If one of the raisons d’etre for this is that kids are our future, then how about we don’t allow anyone over 65 to vote?
Only a little, Michael.
They are just kids, and as kids they shouldn’t have adult responsibilities (and voting is an adult responsibility).
Besides they would form a critical mass and we oldies would all end up in old folks homes waiting for Oscar the Cat to send us on our way.
And they would make us listen to emo.
PS - The kids from the Catholic school in Fitzroy are rude little buggers.
Guy Rundle’s take at Crikey today:
‘Most amazingly he suggests that this is an extension of the process by which democracy was universalised from propertied white males to everyone in the 19th and 20th centuries. Quite how the treatment of children as chattel to be chalked up against your name is an extension rather than a reversal of democratic equality is beyond me, but I would be willing to let that pass for the sheer fun of watching how this would be administered. … The idea that the childless are less-deserving of a vote is noxious and sinister … It has a sort of Heath-Robinsonesque crankishness to it which – as with Latham’s fizzing brain space – ensures people will be wary of letting you near the controls.’
Quite!
Let me add to the Thornley-slappers.
Oh, that would make me a slapper. Oh, well, it would be worth it.
Why is it that anyone who looks like they might be a bit poor or bearded or a musician is jeered at with fairies-at-the-bottom-of-the-garden references if they dare to advance some perfectly sensible idea, like not invading other countries for no good reason or selling our tiny remnant of old growth rainforest for woodchips; whereas someone who claims to be an “entrepreneur” (LookSmart) is treated seriously even if the idea looks like it comes from a total whackjob?
Look, this is a Labor Godbag thing. Families with more children wield more power– you just know the Catholic church has to be in there somewhere, and guess what…
I think the concept should be extended to allow every egg and sperm in the nation a vote. That would of course favour male voters over women voters by a factor of several million to one, and the outcomes of that would be sadly predictable….
But surely anything that leads to more wars and even further increases in our massively bloated Defence (cough!) budget can only be good for the economy, right?
Helen, another bit from the Rundle piece in Crikey:
Add me to the list of ‘wtf!’ers. Wrong on so many levels.
I want someone to defend this madness. Where are the usual suspects when you need them?
Maybe it’s a Catholic conspiracy?
This is not the first time I’ve heard this idea put, and it’s not the first time that I go out on a limb and agree with Robert, my gut reaction is too support it.
One citizen, one vote.
Small children are citizens.
We entrust parents with everything else on behalf of children, why not trust them to exersize their childs vote?
The fact that a lot of parents might vote against their childs real interests is no a valid reason not to let them exersize this supposedly “extra” vote. FDB might argue that stupid people have more children, and their not the sort of people we want with more votes, but this doesn’t undermine the reasoning for such a proposal.
Namely, we already trust parents, right or wrong, to act on the behalf of their children.
That people sometimes vote irresponsibly is not an argument against letting them vote for their children as well, its an argument for not letting them vote.
I further believe that in extending the franchise to all citizens irrespective of age, we should allow any young person who claims the right, the right to exersize their vote.
13, 14 or 16 yearold Paul Norton need not watch his parents use his vote in a way he dislikes, if he actually gives a damn about voting.
Arguments about undue influence by parents over children who do vote are bunk. Parents already exersize undue influence over their children, they brainwash them, and all to often I see the parent taking the first time voter to the booth and telling them which HTV card to accept.
I’m all for extending the franchise to all citizens, irrespective of capacity to vote. We dont even discriminate by capacity now, we discriminate on the basis of age. Don’t believe me, check out the high number of 40 yearold Howard voters, with or without kids, and try and tell me they’re capable of exersizing an informed vote on anyone’s behalf.
If Thornley had proposed depriving “luvvies” of votes, no doubt they’d have something to say…
Mark,
Not so “quite”. One day we have one bunch of people saying that a single cell in a womans ovaries is a living near breathing human being, and now we have Guy Rundle implying that 15 year olds are not quite human until they reach voting age. Don’t forget that a large number of “kids” start working at 15 and are taxpayers to boot. I’m not suggesting that lowering the voting age has any meaning, but is not as cut and dried as this Guy suggests.
I wasn’t endorsing all of Rundle’s piece, BilB - I think that lowering the voting age is a separate debate.
That’s where you’re wrong, and I can’t believe that I’m taking you seriously, but there you go.
It’s not ‘one citizen, one vote’ because somebody else is voting on behalf of that citizen, due to the fact that the child is unable to exercise that right.
So it actually becomes the opposite: one citizen, two or three (or more) votes !!!
What a truly appalling idea.
Paul, you took the words right out of my mouth:
Well, yes. And if they aren’t already exercising their own votes on behalf of their children’s interests, then why on earth would we think they would do so with an extra vote? Not to mention, the implicit idea that those of us without children are somehow incapable of thinking about the interests of children.
If they’re capable of voting, then they should be allowed to vote themselves. If they aren’t, then that’s no reason to give some other person an extra vote. Because let’s face it, that’s what it is - an extra vote for parents, not a vote for kids.
I suppose I should clarify what I meant by “intuitive appeal”. If your view is that voters should vote according to their own best interests, then you can make the argument that children’s interests are as important as everyone else. Therefore, they should get a vote.
However, it seems to be based on a fairly primitive view of democracy (though I suspect not that far off the mark in practice sometimes). If the point of democracy is to get the judgement of as many people as possible as to whose candidates and policies are best for the state as a whole, there is no evidence that parents are more qualified to do so, and then there’s all the other problems illustrated by Mark, Laura, FDB, and so on.
“FDB might argue that stupid people have more children, and their (sic) not the sort of people we want with more votes, but this doesn’t undermine the reasoning for such a proposal.”
Just to clarify, that’s not what I meant at all. My strong language may have contributed to the misunderstanding, but all I meant was that those with lots of children are most likely going to use these extra votes (in the interests of their kids, mind you!) to support the party who promises them the most middle class welfare. Family payments and the like. Nothing stupid about taking advantage of a stupid policy.
As an administrative aside (as if we need to look at the detail to know this is farked, but anyhoo…) what about single parents? What about divorced parents? Foster parents? Abusive parents?
What, in short, about having a fricking think before opening your stupid yap, Thornley?
I BREED AND I VOTES
Here we go again. Robert, private school students save money for childless taxpayers. Remember, a government school student uses $9k of taxpayer funds, a private school student only uses $5k.
If he wants more votes then he needs to get out early and work his way around the booths in his electorate. He also neds to study the recent death notices and match them up with addresses from the telephone book.
Oh, and I am all for increasing the voting age to at least 21 or maybe just taxpayers.
I’m willing to give this ALP-style “in-principle support” if it can be managed somehow that the parent has to provide proof they’ve discussed it with the kid and the kid’s wishes are being carried out. There should be more Wiggles in Parliament. But not Fat Cat, he’s creepy.
If Thornley’s logic was carried through to its conclusion, they would have to.
Craig Mc: you missed my point - that there is a lot more money going to private schools than there used to be.
More broadly, the idea that parents have been hard done by, by any level of government, over the past decade, is just ludicrous.
Terrible idea, but probably smart politics for Thornley. First up it will endear him to Family First et al who may remember it after those who are opposed have forgotten the idea. On top of that, it discredits the idea of giving 16 and 17 year old voters the vote by association. I imagine that Thornley is keen to knock lowering the franchise to 16 on the head and is using this as a way to smear the idea.
The unfortunate fact is that people with kids are not less likely to vote for the future of our planet. In particular, I’m fairly sure that those with large families are statistically less likely to vote for controls on global warming etc than those with small families. Look at Steve Fielding’s ideas on subsidizing petrol because outer suburban families are struggling - screw the planet, let alone more efficient ways of delivering funds to those in need.
I once had a friend who’s mother used to illegally vote on her behalf for years. She let it go even though she was something of a lefty-feminist activist and her parents were close friends of the Ruxtons. In that case it reflected badly on her that she didn’t take voting seriously enough. Now Thornley wants to legislate for a situation where politically passionate children *have* to watch their parents vote in ways they despise, and he won’t admit that this will corrupt support for democracy.
Really? I’ve just read the whole Crikey piece again and I can’t see where he’s implying anything of the kind.
I grant that he was mildly implying that children are not adults, but perhaps you think that’s outrageous as well.
For balance, consider that if one cannot vote for the first 18 years of ones life, ie till working age, then it could be argued that at the end of ones working life one looses the right to vote. 65 your out.
It’s not a smart look by Thornley.
What about my kelpie cross?? (Haven’t got a brat to my name).
Isnt Thornley an endorsed ALP candidate, or is that just at State level? If he is a Federal candidate, they may like to keep him away from a microphone for a few months.
Pavlov C,
Maybe I was merging thoughts, skimming too quickly. The thought is up there somewhere.
Well I have two kids and frankly, I don’t think I am wise enough to be responsible for two votes ( I assume their mother gets half and their farther the other half). All of us are, and should be equally responsible for the outcome.
He was elected to the Victorian upper house last year, and is a Parliamentary Secretary.
What about my kelpie cross??
Mine for PM. She’ll run the country better then any of our potential next leaders could.
Thornley’s proposal would give this silly person 12 votes!
This is why she’s a silly person.
Just as we all know single mums only get preggers to screw the government for the single mothers’ pension, I think you’ll find a rash of sudden pregnancies in marginal electorates…
Maybe Thorley approaches the issue of the disenfranchisement of children from a slightly eccentric angle, but I think the democratic rights of children is a live issue. Ahead of its time - but on the way.
Children get a raw deal politically - and with aging population - they will get it worse in yrs to come.
wbb: how do children get a raw deal politically?
This is exactly the sort of post I’d expect from someone who lives in Brunswick, may well wear black skivvies, and has recklessly come into contact withj an artist.
You’ll be demanding women bus drivers next.
Open the windows in the upper house! Thornley’s obviously deprived of oxygen. As it does with Anna Winter, what irks me is the suggestion that I’m less civic-minded and environmentally conscious because I’m not a breeder. Does Thornley think we are just frittering away all our energies on getting and grabbing, indulging our desires and gratifying our selfish wishes?
There are greater qualifications for civic life than parenthood. There are better contributions to life on earth than breeding. Why not one extra vote for every ten IQ points above the average? Or one for every university subject you’ve passed in your life? Or for every community group you join? Why not more votes for CFA or SES volunteers, or Lifeline volunteers? Or for doctors and nurses and teachers? Why not finally acknowledge the poets as legislators? Because it’s plainly ridiculous to make special cases, to assume that one arbitrary, heterogenous group of people knows any better than another.
Breeding doesn’t make you smarter or wiser or more civic-minded. Besides, it’s not going to be one vote for Dad and three for the kids. More like four votes for Dad and his promised tax cut. And it’ll skew public policy towards high-breeding religious cranks like Mrs Joseph or Joe Gutnick.
Sign me up for the Evan-slappers.
Robert M,
Children don’t get a raw deal while they are children but as soon as they grow up, bam…whack…kapow!!!!!
They discover that their parents aging boss has fixed it with his favourite political party that because he can’t compete in business the best solution is to force the wages of young people down to Kung Chou wage levels meaning he will be working for $12 per hour, and at the same time his frantic parents have been working too jobs to pay for the average suburban house that he has been living which cost them $350,000 (which is why he didn’t see them much and got to watch lots of TV) but is now priced at $650,000 which would take him, like, 21 years to buy if he didn’t have to eat or get around and there was no interest to pay, not that he could get a loan anyway because he faces a lot of years of job hopping, so the Army is looking very good, hello Afghanistan. Hell, who wants to vote anyway!
Children get ripped off because they have no voice in the setting of policy, Robert.
Sure, many speak up for them - but it’s never quite the same thing. Lower the voting age to 14 and make it voluntary up to age 25 - (but before you do that raise the driving age to 25 via referendum so the dangerous maniacs can’t reverse it once they get the vote.)
I can’t wait till I get one of those stickers for my cat that says, “I eat Science Diet kibbles and I vote”.
Children would get a raw deal politically if we made them act like adults before their time. How about worrying about kids who are really living in deprived circumstances, and stop silly-buggering around with silly-bugger ideas.
Anybody who watched Brat Camp on ABC last night would surely agree that some parents don’t deserve to vote for themselves, let alone their spoilt rotten children.
All comfortably wealthy with sadly more money than sense.
There’s me told.
Exactly Anna. My children are now both of voting age, so it doesn’t bother me one way or another, but this whole proposal is just silly. As for phasing in the vote at age 15 on a non-compulsory basis - I was a little persuaded by this at first thought, but then I remembered how much pressure is already on young people of this age what with schooling and planning their future and I thought - let the poor little buggers retain some semblance of childhood.
,
Razor, everyone is a taxpayer these days including children. Even if it’s only the GST on the ice-cream.
This is an old argument that doesn’t have legs.
You missed my point, that there’s even more money going to government schools than there used to be.
But to the original point, yes Thornley’s idea is ludicrous.
And here in a nutshell is why I am, for want of a better word, a conservative. For to call oneself a ‘progressive’ is to never know when something is finished and to have an insatiable urge to fix that which isn’t broken.
It’s not enough to extend the vote to the axe-murderers in Long Bay, a ‘right’ a Rudd government will know doubt give back to the aforementioned class, but you have to give it to twelve-year-olds, despite the fact there’s an army of over-eighteens who can’t be arsed voting, and then to infants in the form of this proposal.
Then come extra voting rights for racial and religious minorities, then for animals, until finally we extend the franchise to cabbages.
If we are taking a vote on this then the Neys have it. Thornley goes down!!!!
LookSmart, TalkStupid
If Evan starts getting popular I’m going to talk to Mrs A about expanding the brood.
Re proxy votes for sub-18 kids:
I’d be all in favour of the policy if and only if those parents claiming the right proved with DNA tests biological parentage of the sprogs whose votes they were exercising.
I think the results of my policy would be an hilarious family lawyers’ picnic that would have the salutary effect of reinforcing genuine family values.
Robert Merkel: “If the point of democracy is to get the judgement of as many people as possible… there is no evidence that parents are more qualified to do so…”
But is that in fact the “point” of democracy? What, indeed, _is_ the “point” of democracy? Well, what is the point of a piece of string?
Democracy is a tool, like a hammer or a socket wrench or dependable due process. What is the actual human point of these tools? Well, to live in a house, maybe; or to drive a car that actually works, or to have a fair trial that nearly everybody can trust in on a normative and reproducible basis. Democracy is not an end in itself, it is just a reasonably dependable method for securing some particular thing or another.
What might that thing be? Depends on who you are, and what are your values. One durable definition of that “thing” has been, “to secure the blessings of Liberty, to ourselves and our Posterity.” But there might be others, if you care to so define them. But you don’t go around enlarging the franchise just to ensure more ‘democracy.’ That is like taking lots of aspirin so that you can feel more aspirin-y.
What about the practical issues? Which parent would get to vote for their kids?
Andrew Norton’s take:
http://andrewnorton.info/blog/2007/07/27/demo-familism/
I’m a bit biased about Evan Thornley, I’ll admit, and I think others have done a fine job of condemning this crazy idea which even if you get beyond the principle of proxy voting raises a rather serious issue of how the joint custodians of each child’s proxy would resolve disagreements about how to cast each vote.
So it’s a bad idea, as I assume all 70+ comments here argue.
But I think this matter raises another issue too of the standard of our politicians. Evan has been rated very highly by some who assume that financial success means you’re going to be good in the political caper.
We need politicians to take more risks and float more ideas. But you’d hope when they do so, especially in set-piece speeches, that they’d submit each idea to some rigour and analysis. About 5 minutes would have done in this case.
When soon to be former Steve Bracks insisted on Evan Thornley’s preselection it was because he represented the best and brightest of Labor people who needed a run in Parliament. Of course that was a bit exaggerated, and the hype may have hit hurt him a little.
But we can see from Evan’s performane in this matter the perils of parachuting in people who’ve had little experience of the frustrations and toughness of political life. Thornley had a lot of student politics time under his belt which I’d kinda assumed would help.
It doesn’t seem to have helped much at all.
There’s much debate within the ALP about parachuting in “rock-stars” into Parliament. Of course the only real rock-star - Peter Garrett - has been mostly on-message, disciplined, humble and a team player from the day he arrived in Canberra, a surprise to most people, certainly to me. But other supposed high flyers like Mary Delahunty, Cheryl Kernot and now Evan seem to have - to paraphrase Sir Humphrey Appleby - are just supported by fortunate big gusts of wind that disguise their basic political ineptitude and often arrogance.
The next round of ALP preselections will most probably see a real backing away from selecting current or former union officials for seats after perhaps choosing one or two many this time. A bit of balance is a good thing for sure but I suspect not one of the former union types or long-time political hacks would have floated a concept like this without kicking it around with people they trusted first, people not afraid to say when they are full of it. It is a very rare celeb who allows critics in the entourage.
So beware of the high flyers, for every relative political success like Malcolm Turnbull and Peter Garrett, there are many more who fly straight into the sides of buildings, making all concerned look rather foolish.
Not even more “family” dominance.
It’s so sad how major parties only justify things by reference to “working families” now. It’s like singles aren’t citizens.
I couldn’t agree more with David. The idea is pathetic. However I’ve long supported the idea of optional voting for those between 15 and 18. Optional as in they enrol if they wish to and vote if they wish to
Given that childhood is so drawn out nowadays, democracy would improve substantially if the voting age were lifted to 25 or 30, unless 12 months of national service is completed.
Evan Thornley is a godsend to the ALP. The lack of genetic diversity is at the root of the swamp Labor “thinking” has become.
David
The day the ALP and ACTU dropped “working CLASS” in favour of working “families” and “people” was the day the last nail was hammered into the coffin of the Left. Who were the guests at the wake? The Luvvies of course.
Unlike the widening vista of glorious diversity, genetic or otherwise that the Liberals have become under Howard.
BTW JG, ever ‘thought’ of taking a good hard look at yourself in the hall of mirrors, as Roy and H.G would say?
Adrian, please stick to the arguments, rather than attacking other commenters personally.
Adrian
Thank you Robert.
Adrian
I now understand LP’s love of Latin. You clearly live for arguments tu quoque and ad hominem.
Now, I must away to Lacan and the mirror stage.
Does anybody out there value children themselves? As an early childhood teacher I respect and admire children’s ability to engage with issues from an early age, so I do believe they deserve a vote. I would probably give children the vote as soon as they could read a ballot paper, and if they wanted to, but it would be THEIR vote, not their parents. And that is where Thornley’s idea is foolish for me. Does he seriously think it empowers children to give their parents more votes? Do many children agree with their parents all the time, or even some of the time?
Children are fundamentally affected by decisions of the body politic, and yet they have no say. Particularly now, with greenhouse gas and climate change issues meaning we need to think 50 and 100 years into the future, you bet they need a vote. Perhaps school we be more meaningful, and life more meaningful for children, if they were seen as citizens with a vote, and a valuable opinion.
JG - I think you went of half-quoqued there.
As a diligent
cut-and-pasterstudent of history, you should know your Latin from your French.Sorry Robert, that was mischievous and uncalled-for and short of not submitting it I would like to express my deep shame.
Err, FDB, tu quoque is Latin.
Well, that’s me stitched up for a good comeuppance then isn’t it?
As the French would say, mea culpa.
*hangs head in shame*
Heh. Opening line of the year, AL.
In breaking news: Pope tends towards Catholicism. But is Missy bi?
I’m with Yarrow Andrew.
I empathise with Yarrow Andrews point of view and I think that we would do well to listen collectively to our childrens opinions on issues. I doubt that children would in retrospect be happy with decisions that they made 3 years prior. Children’s opinions and feelings vary widely from day to day so a binding vote from kids would be less of a good idea but I would certainly like to hear their collective voice on issues.
Some adults’ opinions vary widely from day to day…