Senator McPhedran: Senator Plett, my supplementary question is based on recent reports that I brought to your attention, albeit recently, from Conservative thinkers such as the Tory Reform Group, a U.K. Conservative Party–affiliated think tank, that concluded that lowering the voting age would be a positive outcome for both political engagement in general and their Conservative Party membership specifically. There’s another report that was authored by Conservative MPs from Wales, Scotland and England about the processes and results that they have seen by lowering the voting age where they lay out very convincing arguments that non-partisan rights-granting action is, in fact, the core issue for lowering the federal voting age. These Tory MPs refuted common misperceptions, with all due respect, some of which were repeated in your speech just now, and they concluded that lower voting ages do not disproportionately advance left-of-centre parties. In fact, it is arguably the other way around.

Senator Plett, have you considered the findings in reports such as these?