Graeme Edgeler: electoral law expert and barrister on the Government reinstating a ban on prisoners voting

A legal expert has raised issues with the Government's plan to reinstate a total ban on prisoners voting in general elections.

The Government is proposing to reverse changes that let prisoners with sentences under three years vote, with the Justice Minister saying this sends a message to those who breach their civil responsibilities.

Electoral law expert and barrister Graeme Edgeler has taken issue with the 'randomness' of this proposal.

"If someone's got a life sentence or 10 years or something, they're going to miss out on voting at elections - but someone who's maybe got a one-year sentence, the question of whether they get banned from voting turns on whether they got sentence in 2023 or 2025." 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Cabinet has agreed to reinstate a total ban on prisoners
being allowed to vote in general elections. So in twenty
fifteen there was a High Court ruling that said a
blanket ban on prisoner voting was in direct opposition to
the Bill of Rights Act. Labor then allowed the prisoners
serving less than three years to vote from prison. But
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith is going to overturn that. Graham
Edgler is a lawyer specializing in electoral law and is

(00:20):
with us now, Hey Graham, Hello, what do you reckon?
Is Paul Goldsmith doing the right thing?

Speaker 2 (00:27):
I think probably not, mostly because of the randomness. You know,
if someone's got a life sentence or ten years or something,
they're going to miss out on voting elections. For someone
who's got maybe a one year sentence, then the question
of whether they actually get banned from voting turns on
or were they sentenced in twenty twenty three or twenty
twenty five. Did they spend nine months on remand waiting

(00:50):
for their sentence and then get sentenced, in which case, well,
if they were on remand, they got to vote, but
the person who was charged alongside them at the same
time who guessed the same sentence but who didn't have
to see of any on remand they won't be able
to vote because their entire sentence will be served as
a sentence rather than on pretrol remand And so when
you're dealing with the people on three years or less,

(01:10):
it's the randomness that makes it sort of unreasonable. This
person who got a two year sentence gets to vote
because they've got sentence at the right time in the cycle.
This person who got a six month sentence doesn't because
their sentence was a month before the election. And it's
sort of the randomness. It's not well, is it a
good reason for that person to be deed to vote,
but that person not. And that's why the three year

(01:32):
rule has some sort of sense to it.

Speaker 1 (01:35):
How many of them do you recoonisit in they're going
this is so unfair?

Speaker 2 (01:40):
Probably not many. And I don't know if all that
many people actually voted.

Speaker 1 (01:45):
If they don't care, who cares well?

Speaker 2 (01:48):
Who cares well? They're going to take more time of
Parliament to change the law. You know, it's gone back
to three years already. Yeah, you know, so it's like,
you know, people have got long sentences they're not getting
about the people you think, you know, the murderers, the rapists,
the whatever. You know. It's the people on short sentences,

(02:09):
that's the people we're arguing about. And do the people
who care enough really care that it's worth spending time
to do it really, given given the randomness that's involved,
and who gets what actually punishment.

Speaker 1 (02:24):
It's one of these it's one of these debates where
it's kind of theoretical, and I take your point. It's
an interesting point to make, but that's about it. It's interesting.
I mean, if these guys don't actually care about voting,
and the rest of us are largely just cross with
them for being, you know, misbehaving, and we want to
punish them a little. But then if they don't actually
want to be able to vote, why would anybody argue
on their behalf? Just leave them to it?

Speaker 2 (02:46):
I think just equally the other way around, though, you know,
it's the if you don't really like for some of them,
your argument, it's hard of being in it's part of
being in a community.

Speaker 1 (02:56):
Haven't they lost that right by being by being naughty.

Speaker 2 (03:00):
They've lost the right to be free. They haven't lost
all of the other Like, yeah, like, are there any
other rights that we want to deny them? Yeah, so
we're going to deny them the right to movement and
deny them to freedom, the you know, not not watch
the TV.

Speaker 1 (03:14):
Don't get me started, because yes, I'd say, yeah, I'd
want to take their TVs off them, and I want
to take all the nice food that they have off
them and all of their clothes as well, and really
punish them properly. You know, there will be a lot
of people out there who actually think they have too
easy to go in jail, and so this is just
a tiny little punishment, isn't it.

Speaker 2 (03:32):
The people they're thinking about when they think that, aren't
the people are getting six months or nine months Since
the people you think of, oh that's too easy or
something like that. It's the people who are getting life sentences.
The people who you're in for ten years for aggravated
robbery and wounding with intent and things like that. You know,
it's the people we're talking about are much much less

(03:54):
serious offenders because the law has always banned people for
three years or more.

Speaker 1 (03:59):
I take your point, and I think you are making
some interesting points here. Actually, though, why is this even happening?
I mean, this is the thing that it wasn't a
point of discussion. What's in it for the NETS to
do this.

Speaker 2 (04:11):
They're doing a bill anyway, so it's doing it as
a one off. They had the Election Review Selick committee
came back with a whole bunch of recommendations. The government
sort of accepted almost all of them. Some of them
are going to do straight away before the next election,
some of them are going to be a bit more work,
and maybe we'll look at down the line and this
is just going to get added to the list. And

(04:31):
the government put out the press release today because they
wanted the news story because they think it looks good
for them, and so you know, they could have announced
half a dozen other changes which no one would have
cared about, because you know, it's some election financier all
or something like that, which no one understands and most
people don't need to if you're not running a political party.

Speaker 1 (04:49):
You're true. Hey Graham, listen, thanks for talking us for
to do. Appreciate it. This Graham July, human rights lawyer.

Speaker 2 (04:54):
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Speaker 1 (05:00):
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