Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for External Territories) Share this | Hansard source

I am seeking to continue my remarks on the Electoral Legislation Amendment (Modernisation and Other Measures) Bill 2018. When I stopped my contribution at 1.30, I was referring to a range of matters which dealt with the fact that many constituents of mine—they are not constituents in a sense because they are not on the electoral roll, but many Aboriginal people who live in remote parts of this country, in this case in the seat of Lingiari, are not on the electoral roll and are being denied their rights as citizens to vote because they're not on the roll and they can't participate in our democracy.

This is a deliberate decision which has been taken by this government to cut funding to the Australian Electoral Commission to deny them the opportunity to run education and enrolment campaigns that used to be available in remote communities across this country. This has one damning effect: it ensures the disenfranchisement of the poorest and most vulnerable people in this country. That's what it does. For whatever reason, this government has done it. You can only conclude that it's a deliberate act by this government to prevent people from being enrolled on the electoral roll, from being educated about their rights as citizens to vote and from being able to participate in elections at voting time.

Not only does this affect people who want to vote in federal elections but it also has a direct impact on people who vote in Northern Territory elections, because there is a common roll, and the people who administer the roll and ensure people are enrolled are the Commonwealth. It seems to me that the facts are beyond dispute. Only 84 per cent of Territorians are enrolled to vote; 16 per cent are not, clearly. Across the country, more like 96 per cent are enrolled to vote. In the Northern Territory, 26,377 are not enrolled to vote—figures provided by the Australian Electoral Commission. I suspect it's higher than that, probably closer to 30,000. I have been arguing for some time that the population information the bureau's census collects, by its very nature, is a significant undercount and that the assumptions made by the Australian Electoral Commission are therefore wrong. I made these arguments in presentations over the redistribution which took place in the Northern Territory, where I was given the magnificent opportunity to include in my electorate a number of electors who wouldn't otherwise have been included. My argument is that, had they used the accurate data, the bounty would have gone the other way.

We are seeing here a very deliberate exercise by the Commonwealth to ensure those people are not on the roll. If they're not on the roll, they can't be counted in the assessments of voters for redistribution purposes. I make the assumption that the vast majority of the 26,377 persons not on the roll are in the seat of Lingiari. These people, who should be voting in the election in the next few months, will not be able to vote, because they are not on the roll. This is all down to decisions taken by this government to deny them the vote. Shame on the government!

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