In Australia your slim and fit youth would need to be 18 to be legal! It is quite surprising that in many ways Australia is highly conservative. Democracy arrived here on the back of the trade union movement and also some very left-leaning Governments. Today we have a Labor Government with a Prime Minister who belongs on the extreme left of the governing party. Yet it is a conservative society generally here with many old-fashioned values and practices. Even many young people are quite "right wing" in their attitudes compared to their overseas counterparts. Lowering the age of consent would be difficult here as it would require a referendum and I don't think that even one state would vote in favour of it. |