SUBJECT: Voter ID Laws

CHRIS MITCHELL, HOST:  Milton Dick is the member for the seat of Oxley in Queensland, he joins us now on ABC News Radio. Good afternoon.

MILTON DICK, FEDERAL MEMBER FOR OXLEY:  Hi Chris. Good to be with you. Yes, I was in the chamber for a short time during question time, but was so angry about this proposal that the Speaker thought I should cool my jets and take leave of the chamber because I was forcefully advocating against what the Government's trying to do.

MITCHELL:  You got sent off?

DICK:  Yes, it's the first time this term I have been removed from Question Time, but I feel desperately passionate about, you know, our electoral laws. We've got some of the best laws in Australia, and changing them on the eve of an election doesn't sit well with the Federal Opposition, but I don't think it will sit well with a majority of Australians who will see this for what it is - a trick and a con by a Government trying to make it harder for people to have their say and to change the rules to suit themselves.

MITCHELL:  Yeah, so I don't mean to make light of this because clearly it is a very contentious issue, but we do have licenses to drive cars or boats. You need a license to own a gun. Voting in a federal election is crucially important. You should need some ID shouldn't you? When you're voting?

DICK:  Well Chris, we haven't had ID required for 120 years in Australia. This has never been introduced before. We have some of the strictest and most robust laws of any electoral system in the world. And in fact, at the last general election, when we held an inquiry into the conduct of the election, the Australian Electoral Commission themselves dismissed any notion of multiple voting, they dismissed any irregularities. And in fact, there was only 19 verified instances of double voting. So there is no evidence. Not one single person has been charged as a result of the last election or multiple voting. It doesn't occur.

But what this will do, we’ll see huge amounts of lines during a pandemic, with people lining up who don't have ID. It'll see disenfranchised voters, particularly from rural and remote communities. And I've been listening to what the ABC election analyst Antony Green has had to say about this. People who are homeless, older women, married women from a migrant background are less likely to have identification. So particularly seniors who perhaps don't have a driver's license or a passport. This is just changing the voting rules because Scott Morrison is feeling the pressure. And obviously the bad polls have said they need to change the rules. There is no excuse for changing our electoral laws.

There's not one shred of evidence the Government can point to. I repeatedly asked, as a member of the Joint Standing Electoral Committee into this area, and I've asked the electoral Commissioner directly about - is there any need to change the laws? His quote, has been used over and over again, when asked, the Electoral Commission says that voting discrepancies at Australian election is quote, "vanishingly small". And I say again, Chris, no one was prosecuted for multiple voting at the 2019 federal election. So what's the reason for this? Why is the government doing it? And they're failing to answer that simple question.

MITCHELL:  Listen, I mean, the Prime Minister Scott Morrison and the Liberal Coalition, you know, they believe in democracy, don't they? They don't want people not to be able to vote. Surely you're not saying that? That the Prime Minister of this country doesn't believe in the democratic right of everyone to have a vote. He just wants to make sure that everyone who is voting is doing it properly and securely I mean, we have similar situations around the world, Canada, France, Sweden, Belgium, they all have requirements to show ID, certain states in America want to introduce similar kind of legislation.

DICK:  Well, but there is no evidence and there's no reason to introduce it into Australia. We have some of the most robust electoral laws in the world. And I'll come back to my initial point, Chris, there's no evidence to say that this is, I guess, a solution trying to find a question because it doesn't exist at the moment and I'm glad you raised, the United States because a lot of commentary I've read, I do believe the Federal Opposition Anthony Albanese Labour leader made this point today - this is some kind of US Donald Trump infection of our democratic system and I will not stand for that.

I spoke forcefully in the Parliament today, and Labor will continue alongside our Shadow Minister for electoral matters, Don Farrell, will continue to highlight the fact that this is changing the rules to suit the Government's agenda. And quite frankly, Chris, in my books, it's nothing more than voter suppression. There's no reason for this. There's no evidence suggested, the Australian Electoral Commission is not calling for this. The only people who are doing this is the Liberal Party and National Party in this country who want to change the rules now, we've had byelections that could have test drove this, if this was such an issue, but it does stink that on the eve of an election minutes before midnight, we're now going to tinker around with the electoral laws that have served us for over a century.

There's only been one state where this has happened in Australia's history, and that was in 2015 in my home state of Queensland, and Campbell Newman tried this trick on as well. It's straight out of his playbook. The people of Queensland rejected that. And the Palaszczuk Labor Government when they came to office did the right thing and returned our electoral system to integrity. This is not on Chris and Federal Labor will fight this every step of the way.

MITCHELL:  Yeah, you've made that clear that you're going to fight it. But will this bill get through before the next federal election? Because, I mean, the numbers say that you're not going to, when you haven't got enough people on your side in the house in Canberra to stop this happening.

DICK:  Well, it's a narrow Parliament. Our job is to make sure that we're prosecuting this argument and reminding voters that there is no evidence to change this law. The crossbench will be obviously into heavy negotiations to try and stop this bill. We don't see any reason for this. The Government's rushed it in today, the last sitting day of this Parliament, without any consultation, any due process being followed, dropped into the Parliament before lunchtime today. And we've made it clear that this will be a defining issue for Federal Labor because we believe in our integrity of our electoral system, and Scott Morrison is trashing that and we won't stand for it.

MITCHELL:  Yeah, but I've returned to my point. I mean, you need some people on the other side, some liberals to break ranks. If you're going to stop this happening. How are you going to convince people to sit up and take notice of what you're saying is an affront to democracy in this country?

DICK:  Well, with a lot of hard work, and if the true liberals, you know, in the Parliament, I hope they're not LINOs - Liberals in Name Only - but true believers in democracy. We've had lectures from the National Party and Scott Morrison this week about how we don't need laws for Net Zero. We've got to get Government out of the space of Australian public discourse, you know, which is a bit weird from people sitting, who are charged with the responsibility to make laws. And then they bring this in - the complete opposite of what they've been saying all week. Well, Chris, this isn't the Australian way. This is not something we have ever seen in our politics in Australia. It is an infection by the US style voter suppression tactics that Donald Trump tried on. It's not the way that we've conducted elections before. And we will fight this every step of the way.

MITCHELL:  Milton Dick, thank you very much indeed for your time. Great to be with you.

ENDS