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

I second the amendment. Let's be very, very clear about this. This is just an exercise in voter suppression—nothing more, nothing less. It's designed to deny Australians the legitimate right to vote in our democracy. It's part of a piece. I have railed in this chamber on a number of occasions against the way in which this government has dealt with people who are trying to enrol to vote—where they were attempting to deny people the right to enrol, let alone get a vote. And what we are seeing now is a second part of that piece: 'We've denied the right to vote by not having you enrolled, and now what we want to do is make sure that, when you turn up to the voting place, you don't get to exercise your right to vote in our democracy.' That's what this is about.

I'm sick to the back teeth. I've been here 33 bloody years and I've never seen anything like this. It's racist, it's discriminatory and it's all about suppression. Don't shake your head, because that's what it's about. You have no idea. I know what will happen in my electorate. People from remote communities will turn up to the polling booth to vote, if they're lucky enough to be on the roll, and be asked, 'Do you have a piece of identification?' 'No.' 'Does the person next to you have a piece of identification?' 'No.' 'Well, they can't verify your identification because they don't have their own.' This is a farce, an absolute assault on our democracy.

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