Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As one of the only world leaders who refused to condemn the invasion of the US Capitol, it's only fitting that this Prime Minister is channelling a move straight out of the Trump playbook. He doesn't want donor ID for Christian Porter but he wants voter ID for vulnerable Australians. He talks about cracking down on voter fraud, something the AEC says barely exists and something that saw zero prosecutions from the last election—not one! This is a blatant attempt at Trump style voter suppression—an attempt to divide us by a great divider. This is about making voting harder.

We should be proud of our democracy that we call the Australian ballot. Queues will stretch around the block and many vulnerable Australians will lose their democratic voice. There are 140,000 people waiting to get their citizenship who will be excluded from voting. The fact is: the Prime Minister stalled on an Indigenous voice to parliament, and now he wants to take away their voice at the ballot box. This is a cynical move to minimise the number of Indigenous Australians who get to vote. Our electoral system is proudly Australian. This is ugly, divisive legislation. And I urge Australians to use the ballot box to tell this divisive man his time is up.