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

Very briefly, for the sake of completeness, I can refer to the full wording of article 25, which I now have in front of me. I was talking about arbitrariness and reasonableness. In fact, the test is ‘and without unreasonable restrictions’. Therefore the article quite appropriately contemplates that there will be restrictions on the franchise and therefore the only argument is what is reasonable in all the circumstances. The test for reasonableness is that ‘unreasonable’ means that no reasonable person could consider it reasonable.

Senator Carr asked about what has changed, other than the numbers in the Senate. The last time we debated this issue, I recall that the government’s view was that every prisoner should be denied the vote. The legislation at the time was for, I think, five years—and Senator Murray confirms that—and, in a spirit of compromise, the government and opposition agreed to the 3½-year mark that we are at now. There is no magic in these figures. I commend the Labor Party for having changed its position and accepting 3½ years as being a compromise. But we as a government were always of the view that nobody who is serving a full-time period of incarceration should get the vote. And let me just make it clear to Senator Carr that for people on remand, in home detention and things like that it would be different. We have held that view, and our view has not changed because of the election result. We believe that, that having been our view for such a long period of time, when the people give us a mandate we are entitled to implement those policies that we went to the election with.

Question put:

That schedule 1, item 14, stand as printed.