Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation) Share this | Hansard source

I am reminded that the test is reasonableness not arbitrariness, and the government believes that it is reasonable to remove the right to vote from people who are serving a sentence of full-time imprisonment as a result of the disregard they have shown for the laws of the parliament or parliaments of Australia. That is the government’s position. Whether specific legal advice has been sought on that or not, I do not know, other than to say that I think it is more than reasonable for this parliament to make such a determination, and the fact that it has been subject to debate and consideration in this place would indicate that it is not something that is done arbitrarily but something that is done on a reasonable basis.

The Labor Party want to take some shelter in a halfway house position: if you serve a period of imprisonment of more than 12 months or 3½ years or whatever, then somehow it is reasonable, but for anything below that it is unreasonable. There is also the argument that the states have it for 12 months. Why is it reasonable to deny the vote to somebody who gets sentenced to jail for 365 days, but if they get sentenced to only 364 days they get the vote? Why should that extra one day visit upon the prisoner the loss of their vote? That is the difficulty that the Labor Party have, and that is why I made the point before the dinner adjournment that at least the Democrats have a principled point of view—one that I disagree with—that all prisoners ought to get the vote. That is fine; we happen to disagree on that. But, when the Labor Party start trying to delineate between those sentenced to 364 days, who are deserving of a vote, and those sentenced to 365 days, who are not, they should explain to this place what the difference is of that one day of imprisonment and why it justifies the loss of one’s vote. I think our position is a lot more reasonable.