Utter contempt

In 2022 the Supreme Court ruled that the current voting age of 18 unlawfully discriminated against 16 year olds, and issued a formal declaration of inconsistency with the NZBORA. The previous government's weak and pathetic response to this was to propose lowering the voting age for local body - not general - elections, with the Electoral (Lowering Voting Age for Local Elections and Polls) Legislation Bill. The bill was passed through its first reading and sent to select committee. Now, before that process has even ended, the new government has thrown it in the bin:

The coalition government has formally dumped plans to lower the voting age to 16 for council elections, something considered by the previous Labour government.

Local Government Minister Simeon Brown said he wrote to the chairperson of the Justice Committee informing him that the government did not intend to support the Electoral (Lowering Voting Age for Local Elections and Polls) Legislation Bill through further parliamentary stages, and requested that the Committee ended consideration of it.

[...]

He said the coalition government would not entertain the previous government's voting age proposal and was withdrawing the bill from any further consideration.

This displays utter contempt for our democracy and for the people who submitted in good faith on this bill. The government tells us that select committees are an opportunity for us to "have our say". For it then to bin the bill before it has been hear sends a clear message that this is a lie, that they have no intention of listening, and that the entire process is a fraud upon democracy. It brings the entire institution of parliament into disrepute (which is technically a contempt). Many of the submitters on this bill are likely to be young people, so it has also sent them a clear message that they have no place in politics, and that pursuing democratic methods of change is a waste of time. That message is both immoral and dangerous.

But beyond the contempt it displays for submitters and democracy, it also displays contempt for the BORA and our constitution. While we formally have Parliamentary sovereignty, if the courts find something is so bad that they issue a formal declaration of inconsistency, then it is the clear obligation of Parliament to fix the law. By throwing out this bill, the government is refusing to let Parliament perform that duty, and committing to an ongoing, unlawful, abuse of the human rights of young New Zealanders. And in doing so, it is once again demonstrating that it is unwilling to properly perform the duty of being the ultimate guardian of our human rights, and that that job should therefore be taken off them and given to someone both willing and able to do it: the courts.