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31 January 2023
5:00 AM
Lowering the voting age to 16 looks like a great idea, but only to the Greens.
The party proposed the idea last month as a thinly veiled strategy to win votes – and it would work too. After all, when impressionable children are overwhelmingly provided with a left-wing education, their party of choice is clear. Armed with neither the even-handed education nor the requisite life experience and maturity to make independent decisions, students will inevitably align their votes with whatever party has their unscrupulous attention. And right now, that party is on the radical left. A cursory look at the current curricula in Australian schools makes it clear that the youth of today are ill-equipped to direct the nation of tomorrow.
In announcing the proposal, Greens MP Stephen Bates explained that 16 and 17-year-olds are ‘being left out of the critical decisions that impact them and want their voices to be heard’. It’s unsurprising that people of such young ages yearn for the ballot box when the education system is, to quote Liberal Senator Hollie Hughes, ‘basically run by Marxists’. And who would benefit? By comparing the National Curriculum’s approach to modern history to the Greens’ priorities, we might get our answer.
The new National Curriculum – adopted last year – swamps children with rhetoric of ‘invasion’, ‘dispossession’, and ‘colonisation’. While students in Year Four are taught how Indigenous Australians viewed the arrival of the First Fleet as an ‘invasion’, those in Year Nine are required to analyse the effects of ‘European contact’ – with ‘destruction of cultural lifestyles’, ‘massacres’, and ‘frontier warfare’ among the suggestions for focus.
The Curriculum also emphasises ‘dispossession, disease, and destruction of traditional society and culture’ as a key element of ‘European imperial expansion’. And you can never start too young. Just last year, children in Year One – barely able to read or write – were reported colouring in posters containing phrases such as ‘White Australia has a Blak History…Stop the Lies!’
Did Indigenous populations suffer at the hands of our ancestors? Yes. Is this the whole truth of our history? Absolutely not. As Bella d’Abrera from the Institute of Public Affairs notes, critics of the curriculum argue it is, ‘…hostile to legacy of Western Civilisation, choosing instead to emphasise Indigenous history and ‘knowledges’ over explaining why it is that Australia is a successful liberal democracy.’ That is to say, the rich, cultural elements of Australia’s history that now form the backbone of our peace and prosperity are not afforded nearly as much weight as the ‘black armband’ view of history – elements including the rule of law, freedom of speech, association, thought, religion, and equal rights.
With no appreciation for these basic rights and freedoms secured for every Australian (regardless of race), children are easily manipulated into associating shame with Australia’s history. They wallow in collectivist-guilt for what they believe has only been a systematic regime creating misery and mayhem, instituted by white oppressors on the Indigenous oppressed.
If given the opportunity, these children would cast their ballot for a party most aligned with their education – one which promotes collective hate towards our history, ignoring the values and institutions behind Australia’s freedom.
Enter the Greens. After all, it is Greens leader, Adam Bandt, who refuses to speak with the Australian flag in his presence, saying it ‘represents dispossession and the lingering pains of colonisation’. And it is Greens Senator, Mehreen Faruqi, who in reference to the Queen’s passing, said she could not ‘mourn the leader of a racist empire built on stolen lives, land, and wealth of colonised peoples’. Greens Senator Lidia Thorpe claims to have infiltrated the ‘colonial project’, and in taking her parliamentary oath of allegiance, referenced the queen as ‘colonising’.
This is the familiar language overwhelmingly employed by our National Curriculum and taught to our youth. Doubtless that such rhetoric would resonate with 16-year-olds after hearing it for years in their schools. And it is Greens’ policy to institute a reparations scheme for victims of the Stolen Generations, to the tune of $200,000 each. As a 16-year-old inflicted with collectivist-guilt for the past actions of ancestors, there could be no greater initiative.
That is, until these 16-year-olds reach adulthood when they might find that the one-sided, narrow education they received doesn’t fit in nicely with reality. Having one’s hard-earned income used to fund reparation schemes to address historical wrongs might not appeal to the working-class citizen, who might question why they should be deemed guilty-by-association.
They might have difficulty reconciling the ‘racist empire’ Senator Faruqi describes with Australia’s anti-discrimination legislation (among the strongest in the world), alongside the ‘Diversity and Inclusion’ programs that run rampant in nearly every organisation.
It is adulthood and the responsibilities that go along with it that provide people the opportunity to develop independent opinions beyond the one-sided propaganda foisted upon them during schooling. Lowering the voting age to 16 is an attempt to exploit children locked in a woke education system, unchallenged by life experience – and only one party would benefit.
Eddie Stephen is a Contributor for Young Voices.
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