Goldsmith PaulHon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Thank you Mr Speaker. I'm happy to speak on this debate where we're debating whether the House should take note of the Supreme Court's declaration—which we agree the House should note. I do want to start by acknowledging the supporters of Make It 16 who may be here and who may be tuning in to this debate. Good on them for having a go and for making their case and for everything that they threw into it. We fundamentally don't agree with the proposition being put forward but in a free and open society they should be able to and they should be able to make their case and good luck to them.What we saw through the course of the legal consequences of that was a wide range of opinions actually through the court process. In August 2020 the High Court looked at the matter and said that 18 was in the range of reasonable alternatives. It found that there was a reasonable limit on the right to be free from age-related discrimination and declined to issue a declaration of inconsistency. So that was the High Court.Then it went to the Court of Appeal in December 2021. The Court of Appeal looked at it. It disagreed with the High Court and said that the Attorney-General had not showed that the inconsistency with the Human Rights Act around freedom from discrimination was justified—i.e. that the Attorney-General hadn't made the case. But despite its finding the Court of Appeal declined to make a declaration noting the political nature of the issue—i.e. it concluded that it was something that the normal political decision-making processes through Parliament should work out for itself and it wasn't for the courts to get involved.Then in November 2022 the Supreme Court had its go and it agreed with the Court of Appeal that the Attorney-General hadn't justified the inconsistency with the discrimination of people aged 16 and 17 and that the case hadn't been made. But in contrast to the Court of Appeal the Supreme Court decided to make that declaration of consistency. But of course within the Supreme Court there was a dissenting view from Justice Kós who had a different interpretation which is to say that he considered that in section 12 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act it referred to the age of 18 and that trumped section 19 which had the right to freedom from discrimination such as is outlined in the human rights legislation. And so he thought that it didn't need to be justified in that way. So anyway we ended up with the Supreme Court saying that the rights of 16- and 17-year-olds being discriminated against—which is something that's covered in the human rights legislation—hadn't been justified.Then we got all the media reports and all the commentary which is to say that the Supreme Court says it's unjustified—this breach of human rights. And then you got into a bit of a semantics argument because the Supreme Court in its decision was quite clear that it didn't say that it couldn't be justified it's just that it hadn't been justified because the Crown lawyers hadn't gone out there and tried to make the case as to why 16- and 17-year-olds should be treated differently. It had in fact defended the case on a completely different ground which is to say that it's none of the court's business; it's for Parliament to decide the voting age—that was its view. And so it didn't even attempt to justify it. So there wasn't a meeting of minds between the Crown the Government and the courts—with the Crown making the argument it's for Parliament to decide what the voting age is and the court ultimately deciding that it didn't actually make the effort to justify the discrimination against 16-and 17-year-olds. So that's where we're at.So what are we left to do with it in Parliament? I think the appropriate thing to do is to take note of that declaration from the Supreme Court. By the way it's the first one we've had under this new regime. So it is important that we have this debate we consider it carefully and it's absolutely appropriate that we sit down in the Justice Committee take submissions and give it proper thought and attention. It's also appropriate that the Government respond.Our fundamental view on this side of the House is that you know we're more in the camp of the Court of Appeal which is to say—well you can say what you like about whether it was justified or not but ultimately it's something that should be dealt with within the political arena as it has been in the past and will be in the future. Ultimately it's democratically elected Governments that are accountable to the public that have to make a decision about this.When you think about the age of voting you can make a case for 16-year-olds voting you can make a case for 18-year-olds voting you can make a case for 15-year-olds—there's a wide variety of cases but you've got to draw the line somewhere. We've drawn it at 18. The only point I'd make is that 16- and 17-year-olds are treated extremely differently when it comes to the justice system—in the Youth Court and so forth—and so there is a—Golriz Ghahraman: Seventeen-year-olds are in adult courts—all of them; every single one actually.Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: And I'm being heckled by the Greens. Well that's OK. That's how it should be in the Parliament. We should be heckled from time to time and that's absolutely appropriate. So we think 18 is sufficient.Look there's a wide variety of views. In fact going around schools the group of people who are most opposed to 16- and 17-year-olds voting it seems to me are the 18-year-olds who tend to say quite frequently that No way—no way—should we be voting at 16. Now that I'm 18 we should be voting."—and that's appropriate.So look we can have these debates but the primary point I would be making is that this speaks volumes ultimately for where this Government's headspace is at in the justice area. In the last week of Parliament—as in what we hope will be the dying stages of this Labour Government of six years—where in the justice space there are real serious issues around violent crime around youth crime and huge backlogs and delays to justice so that people's lives are being kept on hold for years awaiting justice we have a Government that is focused on things such as reducing the voting age to 16 which if you look at where public opinion is at and what the public wants the Government focused on is not a high priority.Then we come to the Government's response where they say "Well we basically agree but we can't change the constitutional arrangements because there is a high threshold for changing the voting age in general elections." But fortunately they discovered that they could do it at local elections without having a supermajority—hence they are introducing a bill which we'll be debating next on reducing the voting age to 16 for local elections. We can't see any logic at all for having a different voting age for general elections and local elections. The Minister of Justice was saying something about people being more likely to be living at home when they're 16 but I couldn't quite understand the logic behind that argument at all. It makes sense to keep the voting ages aligned. We see no great push on the part of New Zealanders as a whole to reduce the voting age to 16 at this time.We would wish that the justice Minister and the justice sector and the justice officials would be focused on those pressing issues that we face in the justice space around violent crime around youth crime and around delays to justice in the court system. They've got more than enough to deal with there rather than being distracted with this and banning hate speech and a whole lot of other things that they have been distracted with over the past few years. So I think this has been a useful exercise that we've been through and it's absolutely appropriate that in Parliament we take any declaration from the Supreme Court very seriously and we have. So it is an honour to be part of this debate. Thank you very much."