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Further implications
It seems unlikely that the voting age in Australia will be lowered to 16 in the foreseeable future. Until Bill Shorten's recent statement at a Young Labor gathering in New South Wales, the only political party supporting a lowering of the voting age was the Greens.
Currently the combined voting bloc of Labor and the Greens would not be sufficient to carry a bill reducing the voting age through the parliament.
The Liberal Party is currently opposed to the proposal and what is likely to create anxiety among those who support the idea in either major party is the extent of opposition among current voters. In Australia, opposition to lowering the voting age is among the highest in the world, running at approximately 90 percent.
It has been suggested that the extent of this opposition may be due to the fact that the issue has not yet been widely debated in this country. In the United Kingdom, where the issue has a much higher public profile and discussion of the pros and cons has been much more extensive, there is greater support for lowering the voting age.
Critics of the proposal in Australia have suggested that its current support within the Labor Party may be an attempt to reduce the attraction the new Liberal leader, Malcolm Turnbull, holds for young voters and to rebadged the Labor Party, bringing it more into line with the Greens, who are attracting an increasing constituency of young voters.
However, given Australia's aging demographic, and the increasing percentage of the voter population that will be in older rather than younger age classifications, it does not seem likely that there will be any significant political advantage afforded any party which aligns itself with the cause of 16- and 17-year-old potential voters. Vox pop surveys suggest that those in this age group are themselves uncertain of their fitness to vote and do not have a strong desire to do so.
The issue has gained far greater traction in Europe, especially within Great Britain, and should granting the suffrage to youth become widespread there, it may become more likely in this country. It is interesting to note that in Britain granting the vote to 16- and 17-year olds has recently won the support of prominent Tory (conservative) political leaders. To date there is no sign of this happening in Australia. Were Malcolm Turnbull to put his support behind the proposal the nature of the debate would shift. However, this is one of many issues which has the capacity to expose divisions within the Liberal Party and so is one that Turnbull is likely to ignore.