Invercargill councillors have pushed the button on a $25,000 campaign to encourage residents take an interest in local politics.

Just 53% of the eligible population turned out to vote at the last council elections.

And fewer than 15% of them were in the 18-35% age bracket.

With that in mind, councillors this afternoon approved spending up to $25k on a public event and social media campaign in March next year, where experienced politicians will speak on the rewards and pitfalls of holding office.

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The spend includes $7,500 for an MC, who would be a "recognised national media personality, known to the target age range of 25-50".

Cr Lesley Soper said: "There's an old adage that any publicity is good publicity, and in this case, quite frankly, anything we can do, in any way, that can increase involvement in local government, and in participation and diversity and who will stand and be elected to council, the better really.

"I'm not going to say it couldn't get any worse, because it could of course get a lot worse. We could go back to a very monochrome council that is demonstrated in some of the photos that hand on the wall in our foyer."

Soper said the local government voter turnout had been "abysmal" at the last elections.

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And Cr Alex Crackett, the youngest councillor on the council, said the stats showed the younger demographic are "simply just not engaged, they're not voting".

"While I understand [Cr Lindsay Abbott's] plea that absolutely there should be wisdom around the table, we've seen that like-minds will vote for like-minds, and that ends up being reflected in who is represented around this table," Crackett said.

Cr Crackett says there's a social obligation to push the council forward, with more diversity, both in race and age.

But mayor Sir Tim Shadbolt said while he agreed in principle, looking at a Local Government NZ graph, in terms of Invercargill and age, the council was representative.

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"The same number of people in the elderly age bracket, were the same as we've got around this council table," Sir Tim said.

"So we were one of the most representative councils.

"I know it doesn't look like it, compared with photos you see in our hall way there, but it would be interesting to look up and see if that . . . it was a couple of years ago, so I'll have to look it up and see if that ratio is still the same as it was then."

Councillor Marcus Lush also raised the possibility of council lobbying Central Government to lower the voting age for local body politics to 16.

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"A significant thing we could do to encourage young voter engagement is to lower the voting age, and I think it will happen," Lush said.

"It's one of those things that freaks people out to begin with, but once people start thinking about it, to lower the age to 16 would make perfect sense, particularly in a place like Invercargill, where we lose a lot of the young people at 19, 20, away."

Cr Soper said it was high time the methods of voting changed, with local government still bound by postal voting.

"If you're going to look at widening the franchise, you also need to look very seriously at widening the ways in which people are given the options to vote, which does not mean eliminating the current ballot boxes or postal vote," Cr Soper said.

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Cr Darren Ludlow, chairing this afternoon's Performance, Policy and Partnerships Committee, agreed with both, saying after hearing the political debates of secondary students, he believed they could potentially make more informed voting decisions than their parents.

"And I think we're living in an age where we can renew a passport online, which is a pretty important thing," Ludlow said.

"It's not text vote, it's not Love Island, well, you hope not. Certainly, the opportunity to online vote, that's a discussion I've had with a couple of local government ministers over the years.

"There was a trail that was being looked at a couple of years ago, but it was abandoned, sadly, and it would be good to see that come up again."