Nau mai, haere mai and welcome to your weekly newsletter.

One of the consequences of delaying the New Zealand general election is that about 5,000 more young people will be eligible to vote because their 18th birthdays now fall before October 17. This is wonderful for those young citizens, but as philosophy lecturer Nick Munn writes, it also points up the arbitrariness of the voting age in the first place. By lowering it, as the “Make it 16” campaign calls for, might we engage more young people in the democratic process and form the voting habit earlier?

The election was delayed, of course, because of the COVID-19 outbreak in Auckland and the subsequent level 3 alert in our biggest city (and level 2 elsewhere). In contrast to the country’s first outbreak, during which only 25 of the more than 1,000 positive samples had been genetically sequenced by mid-April, genome sequencing is now an integral part of the resurgence response. It speeds up the process of confirming whether new cases belong to the Auckland cluster, as David Welch explains, and it will remain useful well beyond the immediate response, as we try to better understand this virus.

There is a lot more to read in this edition, including legal expert Al Gillespie’s thought-provoking argument in favour of a prisoner transfer agreement with Australia that would allow the Christchurch terrorist (whose sentencing hearing is taking place right now) to be deported back to his home country.

As ever, thank you for supporting The Conversation and please spread the word to any friends, family and colleagues you think might appreciate our work too.

Until next time – take care, noho ora mai.