Civil liberties council advocates for NSW prisoners’ right to vote

The NSW Council for Civil Liberties (NSWCCL) appeared yesterday before the NSW Electoral Matters committee to advocate for the removal of current restrictions on prisoners’ right to vote.

As of June 2022, First Nations people represent 3.2 per cent of Australia’s population. Yet, they make up 30.4 per cent of the adult prison population in NSW.

The NSW Electoral Act 2017 does not allow a person who has been convicted of an offence, and is serving a sentence of 12 months’ imprisonment or more, to vote.

“The Council strongly believes that any exclusion of a person’s right to vote is a grave curtailing of the right to participate in a healthy democracy,” said NSWCCL in a statement released yesterday.

President Lydia Shelly said, “The right to vote is just one of a range of human rights such as freedom of speech and rights to associate, assemble and protest that are fundamental to democracy.

“We should not support laws that seek to exclude certain groups from being able to vote. We should not support governments that seek to exclude certain groups from voting and exercising their democratic rights”.

Ms Shelly also noted that since  The Final Report of the 2021 NSW Select Committee on the High Level of First Nations People in Custody and Oversight and Review of Deaths in Custody was tabled in the New South Wales Parliament, 30 years after the Royal Commission’s Final Report was published, little progress has been made.

In fact, according to a report, the proportion of Australia’s prison population that is Indigenous doubled in that time.

“The NSWCCL is deeply concerned about the unacceptably high level of First Nations people in custody. Enabling people in prison to vote is a small step forwards in addressing the enormous disadvantage that First Nations people face,” Ms Shelly continued.

“We should be connecting prisoners to society, giving them a stake in their communities’ future. Allowing prisoners to vote is a form of rehabilitation in itself.

“Revoking their right to vote is an extra penalty that reinforces feelings of disempowerment, isolation, and stigma”.

In the ACT and South Australia, all people in prison can vote in their elections.