As President Biden desperately fights to convince America he’s not too old for the job, Craig Young looks at the older politicians in our parliament and asks do we need an age limit?
Although current debates about elderly politicians are restricted to Joe Biden and Donald Trump’s US presidential candidacies, what about our own parliament? Should advanced age disqualify candidates running for political office?
As I’m in my early sixties myself, I must declare my own interests and stance here in advance. I don’t think there should be any such compulsory retirement unless the candidate or incumbent politician in question is cognitively impaired (they can’t think straight) or otherwise debilitated by illness or incapacity, When it comes to our Parliament, there are three contenders for ‘parents of the house”- Judith Collins (65) is the longest-serving female MP at present, and Gerry Brownlee (68) is the longest-serving male. Both will turn seventy during this decade and neither show any signs of slowing down. Collins is once more a Cabinet Minister and Brownlee is currently speaker of the House of Representatives.
If you’re thinking ‘hang on, what about Winston?’, then you’re correct, however, father or mother of the house is based on longest continuous service. In Winston Peters’ (79) case, he’s spent two terms out of Parliament (2008-2011 and 2020-2023), when New Zealand First’s list-only representation fell beneath the five percent threshold. However, he’s been a politician for over thirty-six years since he was first elected to Tauranga in 1991. And much as I wish I could report otherwise, he doesn’t show any sign of cognitive impairment or physical infirmity. Peters will turn 80 in 2025 and will be eighty-one at the next New Zealand election in 2026.
Advanced age doesn’t necessarily mean the onset of social conservatism, either. Labour’s Jonathan Hunt served a credible 38 years and had an excellent social liberal voting record, as did Peter Dunne, apart from a hiccup over the “Defence of Marriage” Bill devised by his conservative Catholic quisling List MP, the late Gordon Copeland, who later defected from United Future to join the fundamentalist Conservative Party (now “New Conservative”). Judith Collins appears to have improved with age in that regard, however.
As for the House of Commons, US House of Representatives and Australian Senate, all of them have members in their eighties, almost all of whom conduct their duties responsibly. The sole exception to this rule is Bob Katter, who runs a modestly named regional political organisation called Katter’s Australian Party. He threw eggs at the Beatles in the sixties, opposed the decriminalisation of homosexuality in Tasmania in the late nineties, has a spotty parliamentary attendance record, opposes gun control, ignores the existence of climate change and opposed marriage equality as well. He has been inebriated while in the Australian Senate on a number of occasions. He’s almost the same age as Winston Peters, but at least Peters comports himself with some dignity.
While Katter’s erratic conduct cannot solely be attributed to age-related cognitive impairment, given there are other possible reasons why this may be the case, it does raise some questions about whether there needs to be an age limit when a politician reaches a certain point in their lives. At the very least, cognitive testing should perhaps be a requirement.
