Guest Blog: Green MP - Gareth Hughes

I believe in the ‘wisdom of crowds’ and that collective decision making will always deliver better results than those made by an individual or clique. I guess another word for that is democracy.

Democracy works best when we have informed citizens participating in decision making but what we’ve seen in New Zealand over the last few decades is in fact the opposite. This is especially true for young voters where only 65% of eligible 25-29 year-olds voted at the last Election.

One solution to declining youth political participation is civics education. I don’t mean ‘hand on heart, pledge of allegiance’ style civics, but straight-forward, non-partisan information about our democracy, Parliament and how people can become involved. It’s incredible that Kiwis aren’t given the basic information on how their country works; it’s like being encouraged to play a team sport without being told the rules.

Growing up in Gisborne, I wasn’t at all interested in politics but saw politics affect my town and community. I worked out that political decisions influence every aspect of our lives and it’s better to be involved than to simply be affected.

Civics education is a key step to understanding what’s going on in our country.