Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern Australia and Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I am glad that the member for Eden-Monaro is sitting at the table, because I lived in the Northern Territory when he was there, involved with the CLP. He scarpered. He knows that he is now endorsing a piece of legislation, the Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Electoral Integrity and Other Measures) Bill 2005, which will effectively disenfranchise literally thousands of Territorians. Indigenous Australians who live in remote communities and Indigenous Australians who are in jail, as the member for Calare has said, will be now disenfranchised because of this legislation.

Young Aboriginal Territorians turning 18 may not be aware of their responsibilities as electors and citizens of this country when the next election is called. How will they have knowledge that an election has been called? Most will not have a radio. They certainly will not have access to a newspaper. They will not be in a position to register on the roll. That is partly because of decisions taken by the first Howard government in 1996 to get the Aboriginal voter education unit out of the Electoral Commission. That is what they did. It was a shameful exercise to take away the capacity of the Electoral Commission to provide information and educational material to Indigenous Australians which demonstrated their responsibilities as voters and put them on the roll. This legislation is fundamentally antidemocratic. There is no need to close the roll on the day the election is called. What is the legitimate reason?

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