The Government Has Scrapped One Of Its Most Controversial Legislation Proposals… For Now
ScoMo claims he was trying to stop voter fraud, despite there being little evidence of it even being an issue in Australia.
The Morrison government has finally given up on their attempt to pass controversial mandatory ID voting changes before the 2022 Federal election, during the final Parliamentary sitting week.
The axed proposals, formerly backed by One Nation, would have forced individuals to prove their identity before voting. It risked denying groups without access to official documents or who live in remote areas the right to vote — including people experiencing homelessness, people living with disability, domestic violence survivors, and some Indigenous communities. ScoMo maintained during rolling debate that it would tackle voter fraud despite there being little evidence of it even being an issue in Australia.
On Wednesday, Senator Jacqui Lambie shared that she was voting against the bill, thwarting the vital cross bench numbers needed to pass it in the Upper House. However, she did not agree with claims the bill was racist for disenfranchising First Nations voters, according to The New Daily. The ball finally dropped when a backroom deal was made with Labor in exchange for the Opposition’s support on another bill that would force charities to reveal their donors.
I'm voting against the government's voter ID laws.
I asked people for their views, and more than 33,000 replied.
And I'm looking through the responses for signs the bill gets the balance right. And I realised why I can't find any — there's no way to know. pic.twitter.com/eBy9grl1AL
— Jacqui Lambie (@JacquiLambie) December 1, 2021
“We’re making a big change to the way people vote and we really are doing it blind,” said Lambie. “We haven’t done it before so we don’t know if the protections that the bill puts in place are appropriate.”
Liberal MP Jason Falinski didn’t rule out that the voter ID bill wouldn’t make a reappearance in the future. “I think it’s a reasonable thing for the government to do to take it off the table and to come back to it after the next election so that it can be implemented properly and fully with due consultation with groups that may find themselves more likely to be adversely affected by it,” he said.