NZ's enrolment problem - where are the young voters?

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1. 0:07Speaker 1: Kia ora, I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is The Front Page,
2. 0:10Speaker 1: a daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. Seven
3. 0:19Speaker 1: weeks out from the election and around 188,000 young people are missing from the roll.
4. 0:26Speaker 2: There are an estimated 440,692 18 to.
5. 0:28Speaker 1: 24-year-olds eligible to vote, but only just over 57% of them have enrolled. It's the lowest percentage across all age groups by.
6. 0:33Speaker 3: A huge margin.
7. 0:34Speaker 1: The next lowest is the 30 to 34-year-olds at nearly 83%.
8. 0:48Speaker 1: So why are young people so disengaged with democracy?
9. 0:53Speaker 2: What's going to get them to participate?
10. 0:55Speaker 1: And what does this tell us about.
11. 0:57Speaker 2: The current political environment?
12. 0:59Speaker 1: Today on the front page, On A Roll is a non-partisan campaign which aims to help young.
13. 1:04Speaker 2: People enrol to vote. And one of their spokespeople, Adriana Bird.
14. 1:09Speaker 3: Is with us now.
15. 1:14Speaker 1: So Adriana, tell me what exactly is On a Roll and what are you guys out there doing?
16. 1:21Speaker 3: Cool.
17. 1:21Speaker 4: So yeah, the On a Roll campaign, or Roll With Us as well, is a by Rangatahi, for Rangatahi, enrolment campaign that is about getting the 188,000 of us who
18. 1:33Speaker 4: aren't enrolled, enrolled in voting in this year's election. We want young people to use their voice and feel like their voice will actually be heard. And we do that
19. 1:43Speaker 4: by mobilising all of us and creating a sense of noise that can't really be.
20. 1:50Speaker 1: Ignored.
21. 1:52Speaker 2: Do young people feel like they have been ignored?
22. 1:56Speaker 4: I think that's definitely a sentiment amongst a lot of us.
23. 1:58Speaker 4: I think our generation has felt that our voices are somewhat muted in the political climate and I think the
24. 2:09Speaker 4: feeling of collectivism is something that we really want to push across young people and understanding that well one of us might be a bit easier to ignore if all
25. 2:18Speaker 4: hundreds of thousands of us speak together then we get to have a say in our future.
26. 2:25Speaker 1: The number of young people enrolled is actually lower than at the same time in 2020 and 2023.
27. 2:29Speaker 2: Why do you think that is?
28. 2:34Speaker 3: I think it's a combination of reasons.
29. 2:35Speaker 4: I think a lot of the young people that we've been talking to throughout the kind of building phase of this campaign haven't even realised that they're not enrolled. I think a lot of young people assume that it happens
30. 2:45Speaker 4: automatically when they turn 18 and so it's often actually just a lack of information or just not being kind of kept in the loop from day one and young
31. 2:56Speaker 4: people are really keen to have their say and really keen to be a part of the decision making in their future and so the kind of core element of this campaign is making sure that our fellow generation can
32. 3:07Speaker 4: and will continue to participate in the decision-making of their future.
33. 3:11Speaker 4: And that starts with just getting the word out there that you need to enrol and you need to do it online.
34. 3:16Speaker 3: It takes two minutes. And for this year as well, you need to do it before October 25th.
35. 3:22Speaker 2: What are some of the things that matter most to young people?
36. 3:27Speaker 3: I think everything.
37. 3:28Speaker 4: And I think that's kind of one of the main, I guess– things we've found while we've been talking to our peers is that young people care a lot about their future.
38. 3:37Speaker 3: And there's a sense by, I mean.
39. 3:40Speaker 4: Some political parties and just some people in general that young people have given up or they're apathetic or no longer kind of care enough to be involved.
40. 3:49Speaker 3: And that's just not the case at all.
41. 3:51Speaker 4: Young people really deeply care about the future of their country and their lives and their whānau and their environment and everything that feeds into that whether it's you know how much they pay for rent if they can get
42. 4:02Speaker 4: a job what the you know country looks like everything um and so it's it's not even about what young people care about it's the fact that they care and
43. 4:13Speaker 4: they want their voices to be heard and this is the easiest way to kind of do that.
44. 4:18Speaker 1: Do you feel as well, because when we talk about young voters, oftentimes people are like, oh, well, all they care about is climate change and that kind of disincentivises
45. 4:29Speaker 1: people from actually listening to what young people have to say about things because it's like, well, you care a lot about a lot more things and a lot more variety of things than just climate change or something.
46. 4:39Speaker 4: Absolutely, and that's exactly the right thing as well. There's no one key issue that young people care about. their
47. 4:48Speaker 4: ability to have a future in this country. And that touches onto everything that is political these days, whether it's climate change, whether it's how much you pay for your food at the grocery stores, it's.
48. 5:00Speaker 3: All kind of interconnects.
49. 5:01Speaker 4: And I think also our generation is very aware that things aren't dealt with in silos anymore. You need to kind of have a full view of the future and you can't just deal with one issue at a time.
50. 5:13Speaker 3: It all connects. And we see that as young people, we understand that.
51. 5:16Speaker 4: And I think That's why there's probably a frustration of being pigeonholed into particular issues.
52. 5:21Speaker 3: When in reality we just care about the future of our lives and our country.
53. 5:28Speaker 5: Here's a graph of enrolment on June 30th for the last six election years. This line here is people aged 18 to 24. And every election for the last six elections,
54. 5:39Speaker 5: that line has gone down from 70% in 2011 to this year when it dropped to only 53%. And that is especially bad news this election, because last year the
55. 5:50Speaker 5: government passed this. The Electoral Amendment Act 2025. So this election, unlike last election and the election before that, you cannot
56. 5:58Speaker 5: enroll and vote at the same time. In 2023, 450,000 people enrolled during the 12-day voting period. They were then allowed to vote and be part of democracy. This year,
57. 6:10Speaker 5: if you try to do that, your vote will not count.
58. 6:13Speaker 5: You must be enrolled by midnight, October 25th, to have your vote counted.
59. 6:19Speaker 2: Now, you mentioned this before, but I'll mention it again.
60. 6:21Speaker 1: This is the first election where you can't actually enrol on voting day, and the cut-off is at midnight on the 25th of October. Do you think that that is
61. 6:30Speaker 1: a factor into the low enrolment numbers? Like you said before, that people just don't know. I don't think it's just young people that.
62. 6:36Speaker 2: Don't know, by the way. I think a lot of people don't know.
63. 6:40Speaker 3: That's true.
64. 6:40Speaker 4: I think a lot of people aren't aware that that is the date that you kind of have to hit.
65. 6:44Speaker 3: If you want to vote, you need to be enrolled by October 21st. You need to be on the roll.
66. 6:49Speaker 3: And I think for what we're seeing at the.
67. 6:51Speaker 4: Moment in terms of low enrollment numbers, it's not necessarily that date that is the reason why there's such low enrollment for young people, but it's definitely a factor in
68. 7:01Speaker 4: making sure that young people are enrolled as soon as possible because we know that young people are mobile. We know that their addresses change very often and And we want young people to understand that they can't just rock
69. 7:11Speaker 4: up on voting day this year and vote if they haven't been enrolled already or haven't updated their details properly.
70. 7:17Speaker 4: And so, yeah, that's just kind of the key message that we're really getting across. And the key date that we're focusing on is October 25.
71. 7:25Speaker 1: When you talk to this group, so 18 to 24-year-olds we're talking about here, what are the most common reasons they give for not being enrolled?
72. 7:35Speaker 4: It's honestly been quite a range and I think the majority of it has been around just not even yet like I said not even realizing that they need to
73. 7:44Speaker 4: get enrolled themselves um and beyond that as well it's some people don't realize obviously the deadline with October 25th
74. 7:51Speaker 4: um others just don't even understand I guess the process that is needed you know in order to do so and I think um There's obviously a lot of information out there, but I think the way one thing that
75. 8:03Speaker 4: our campaign is really aiming to do is build the gap of.
76. 8:06Speaker 3: How young people are communicated with.
77. 8:08Speaker 4: And I think we all know that, you know, talking at young people or having political parties kind of tell young people what to think is just not the way to go about it. And it's actually fellow young people
78. 8:18Speaker 4: talking to each other and explaining how things are operating and kind of empowering each other to have a voice and get involved and participate.
79. 8:26Speaker 2: And just changing the way, like you said as well.
80. 8:28Speaker 1: Just changing the way how politicians speak to young people or even reach out on kind of different platforms, you know, like because young people, obviously I'm generalising here, but I'm assuming more so on social media, more so on, you know,
81. 8:40Speaker 1: out and about at like, you know, cool gigs and stuff.
82. 8:43Speaker 2: I don't know.
83. 8:43Speaker 1: I'm obviously not a young person in this age group, so I don't know what you all do. But things like that, I mean, young people, I assume, are not, you know, at home watching the 6pm.
84. 8:54Speaker 6: News, right?
85. 8:56Speaker 3: I mean, some might be and that's awesome. But yes, I think a vast majority of our generation.
86. 9:01Speaker 4: Are online, on TikTok, on Instagram and out in their communities with their friends.
87. 9:09Speaker 3: And that's awesome.
88. 9:10Speaker 4: And that's also the whole point of our campaign is reaching young people where they are and actually going to those events and speaking to our fellow peers and getting them to enroll and vote.
89. 9:21Speaker 3: And that's the whole crux of it, really.
90. 9:26Speaker 1: I see some young people say, well, none of the parties speak to us. And when I read that, I was kind of like, I felt a bit of a
91. 9:36Speaker 1: kin because I'm single and childless, right? And a lot of the parties and the policies and stuff don't speak to me either. So I know how it feels when
92. 9:45Speaker 1: you see party announcements and things like this. I'm constantly just waiting for the bit where it says for young families.
93. 9:51Speaker 1: And it's like, okay, well, not me. Is that the kind of thing that you guys feel as well?
94. 9:57Speaker 4: I think yeah I think it's definitely a reason why we wanted to have a campaign like this was to essentially get young people to engage in the election before
95. 10:08Speaker 4: the step of being pitched a political party or being pitched particular policies and I think a lot of A lot of the reason I know that a lot of my friends don't necessarily like to be involved in politics
96. 10:20Speaker 4: is because they feel like they have to be super informed and have all the right answers and pick a side on every issue before they can actually express an opinion or have a voice. And one thing we really
97. 10:30Speaker 4: want to make clear with this campaign is that it is completely non-political. We don't want to tell you who to vote for. We're not going to tell you which policies that you should care about. That's completely for young
98. 10:40Speaker 4: people to decide themselves. We just want people to be on the roll so that they can actually express those opinions.
99. 10:48Speaker 1: So how many young people do you want to see enrolled by the cutoff? Do you have a kind of main number?
100. 10:54Speaker 3: I mean, the pipe dream is all 188,000. Yeah. I mean, yeah, that's the goal. And we're not the only ones doing this.
101. 11:03Speaker 4: There's so many other organisations out there who are doing everything they can to help young people get enrolled. And so, yeah, collectively, if we can get all 188,000 18 to 24 year
102. 11:14Speaker 4: olds enrolled by October 25th, then that's an absolute game changer and means that we've got a huge amount of young Kiwis engaged and participating.
103. 11:23Speaker 6: One thing I love the most about working with young people is that they have the coolest ideas. Like they want to be involved and they want to really share their voices and things. But it's hard because, you know,
104. 11:34Speaker 6: your age is obviously something that people can be like, oh, you're quite young.
105. 11:38Speaker 3: You don't have that much wisdom. You don't have that much knowledge. So people can shut you down from time to time.
106. 11:43Speaker 6: And I think, you know, educating young people around voting, around civics is so important because they are the people who shape where I guess Aotearoa goes in the next
107. 11:52Speaker 6: few years. And their votes really do matter.
108. 11:57Speaker 1: What's the most surprising or memorable moment that comes to mind when you've been out on the road? Because you've been everywhere, it seems, by now, and obviously you've got
109. 12:06Speaker 1: a long couple of seven weeks ahead of you. What's something that really sticks out to you?
110. 12:13Speaker 4: I think the thing that struck me the most is just how broad the support has been. We've had 14-year-olds in different regions who obviously, you know, quite a few
111. 12:24Speaker 4: years away from being eligible to vote, who are so keen to be a part of this campaign and so keen to support it and put their time aside for
112. 12:34Speaker 4: it and help kind of mobilize their older peers at the same time that we have 80-year-olds who are extremely keen to be in our media and social media teams
113. 12:44Speaker 4: and help with our posters and help with the, you know, with the ground game as well. And so I think that's probably what's, I guess, struck me the most. It's just that broadness of support that we've felt from across
114. 12:56Speaker 4: the country.
115. 12:58Speaker 1: What do you make of people giving grief to Gen Zs?
116. 13:02Speaker 2: I've had it. I'm a millennial.
117. 13:04Speaker 1: So I copped it from the generations before me. But how does it feel when you guys cop it by, you know, being lazy or not interested, stuff like that?
118. 13:15Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, as a fellow Gen Zer, I've definitely, you know, cocked that kind of laziness, I guess, label.
119. 13:22Speaker 4: But I think we understand each other and we understand that we're not lazy and that this is about us feeling like we haven't been heard. And it's easy to
120. 13:33Speaker 4: kind of switch off when you feel like there's no point in your voice, in sharing your voice, because who's going to listen to you? And that's why we wanted this campaign to kind of speak to young people and
121. 13:43Speaker 4: be a lot be like a lot like focused on that sense of i guess collectivism and really focus on the numbers because 188 000 people is really hard to
122. 13:54Speaker 4: ignore and so if all of us enrolled and voted then imagine what our future would look like imagine if we all turned out it would completely change the future
123. 14:04Speaker 4: of this company a country and we'd be able to you know have a massive voice in the decisions that kind of take us forward.
124. 14:12Speaker 1: So as a young person, I'm interested, what scares you the most about how the future is looking for you at the moment?
125. 14:20Speaker 3: I mean, as a young person, there's a lot that scares me.
126. 14:23Speaker 4: I think the future of our country and the globe
127. 14:29Speaker 4: is something that can be quite easy to shut off when you look at some of the things that we are facing in the world, but it's also.
128. 14:41Speaker 3: this.
129. 14:42Speaker 4: Campaign is about giving young people like myself a sense of hope that if we all band together and we all kind of get on the roll and start voting and using our voice, then like there's a chance that
130. 14:53Speaker 4: we can change things. And so, yeah, I try not to get too bogged down in what scares me in the future and more focused on how I can actually help change that.
131. 15:02Speaker 3: You know, my personal opinion is that action and community are the antidotes to despair.
132. 15:07Speaker 4: And so, the more I can do and the more other young people can do, the better our future will be.
133. 15:13Speaker 1: What would you like to see from political parties, maybe even the Electoral Commission and stuff, to better engage with those 18 to 24-year-old, that age group in future?
134. 15:23Speaker 3: I think it's just simply listening.
135. 15:26Speaker 4: I think young people have voices and they have opinions and rather than being kind of told what to think or trying to be, I guess, talked at, it's as
136. 15:35Speaker 4: simple as just listening to young people when they talk, and that's it.
137. 15:41Speaker 2: That's pretty simple, hey?
138. 15:43Speaker 3: Yeah, very simple.
139. 15:45Speaker 2: Thank you so much for joining us, Adriana.
140. 15:48Speaker 1: Cheers.
141. 15:48Speaker 3: Thank you very much.
142. 15:51Speaker 2: That's it for this episode of The Front Page.
143. 15:54Speaker 1: You can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage at nzherald.co.nz. The Front Page is hosted and produced
144. 16:03Speaker 1: by me, Chelsea Daniels. Kane Dickey is our studio operator, Richard Martin, our producer and editor, and our executive producer.
145. 16:11Speaker 3: Is Jane Yee.
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