Georgina Beyer inspires young people to vote

Groundbreaking politician Georgina Beyer is concerned young people will play true to form and not turn out for the 2020 election.

Beyer first
made history as the world’s first transgender mayor in 1995 and again four
years later as the world’s first transgender member of parliament.

This year’s election, the former mayor of Carterton and MP for Wairarapa is keen to encourage young people to vote.

“For young people to take part in politics is even more important today, because they will inherit a world that is chaos,” she says.

“It really disturbs me, that a lot of young people think that their vote doesn’t make a difference. Because it absolutely bloody does.”

To get more young people to vote, Georgina supports lowering the voting age to 16. Moreover, she is a great believer in participatory politics: “I want to encourage people to get involved.”

Non-voters get no sympathy or understanding
from her. “We live in democracy here. Voting is part of it – I know, democracy
is not perfect, but it’s so much better than what else is on offer.”

Her time as the mayor of Carterton contributed
to her belief that people of any age can contribute. Beyer recalled a local
nine-year-old boy writing a letter to her because his school bus would not come
to his house due to the road’s bad condition.

“So, I encouraged his family to make him read
the letter in council as a submission.” What’s more, she let him stay during
the council’s process of decision making.

Not everybody approved this approach, but to Beyer
transparency is the key to helping people understand how politics works. And to
her this doesn’t only apply to local government.

“I really like the idea of opening up our
parliament,” Georgina says.  “It could also
motivate young people, if they would see a reflection of themselves in
parliament, so it’s not just a bunch of old people.”

Being an advocate for the LGBTQI+ community and prostitutes, Georgina points out the need to politically represent subgroups as well.

“We need to give minorities a voice – New Zealand is not just black and white anymore, we are multicultural. So, make sure the [party] lists are diverse.”

The 62-year-old says she got involved even
though she never had a political bone in her body – and she made it into
council, to mayor and to MP.

And getting involved is what’s important – this
is not always a straight line. Although Georgina ran for councillor in 1992, she
lost by 14 votes.

However, she wasn’t disappointed as she didn’t
expect to get in. On the contrary, this experience encouraged her even more as
she saw a platform to address the community’s problems.

“When I became an elected councillor in 1993, I
asked myself ‘And what do I do now?’ but you don’t know until you give it a go
and I definitely didn’t want to miss out on getting involved and making a
statement”, she remembers.

So, it’s not only about big actions. Georgina
ran for council, mayor and MP; looking back she reflects: “I had a small role
in making a change.”

And it all started with a vote.