Labor slams push for election ID laws

Controversial laws to compel Australians to produce ID at the polling booth have been introduced into parliament, prompting a strong rebuke from Labor and the Greens.

Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese. Picture: Martin Ollman

Laws to compel Australians to produce ID at the polling booth have been introduced into parliament, prompting a strong rebuke from Labor and the Greens.

The Morrison government insists the legislation will improve public confidence in elections and reduce the risk of fraud, despite the Australian Electoral Commission describing the risk of multiple ­voting as “vanishingly small.”

Introducing the bill on Thursday, Energy Minister Angus Taylor said the legislation would bring Australia into line with other liberal democracies such as Canada and Sweden.

Anthony Albanese accused the government of trying to undermine democracy through an “ugly, divisive” piece of legislation that would disenfranchise Indigenous and vulnerable Australians who did not have access to identification. “On the eve of an election, the Morrison-Joyce government is trying to ram through a bill to stop Australians voting,” the Opposition Leader said.

“This is a desperate attempt to undermine our strong democracy and deny Australians their basic democratic rights.”

Mr Albanese used a separate 90-second member statement before the final question time of the sitting fortnight to call on Australians to vote the Morrison government out at the next federal election, which is due before May next year.

“The fact is, he (Scott Morrison) has stolen an Indigenous voice to parliament.

“Now he wants to take away their voice in the ballot box,” Mr Albanese said.

“This is a cynical move to minimise the number of Indigenous Australians who get the vote …

“This is ugly, divisive legislation and I urge Australians to use the ballot box to tell this divisive man his time is up.”

Greens deputy leader Larissa Waters described the laws as “pure politics” designed to fix a fictional problem “dreamt up in the fevered imaginations of the most extreme right-wing fantasists.”

While Labor and the Greens are staunchly against the bill, the government may be able to get the legislation through parliament with the support of the ­Senate crossbench after Centre Alliance signalled it was generally supportive of the plan.

The Prime Minister defended the bill, declaring that it was “not an earth-shattering proposal” and was a “standard practice in liberal democracies” around the world.

The proposed bill includes safeguards that still allow those who are unable to produce ID to vote provided that their identity can be verified by someone else, or if they provide their date of birth and a signature.

After defeating a Labor motion to delay debate on the legislation until 2023, the Morrison government will try to pass the proposal during the final sitting fortnight of the year.

The government also introduced separate legislation that ­allows the AEC to have election contingency measures in place during a crisis, such as an outbreak of Covid-19.

The bill would allow for both voting and the scrutinising of votes to be suspended at certain polling or pre-polling booths in the event of an emergency.