In Queensland, the LNP wants to further restrict the voting rights of incarcerated persons. It will disproportionately impact First Nations communities.
By Tahlia Isaac
When you design laws that hinge voting rights on sentence length, you are effectively designing laws that disproportionately silence First Nations people. That is not fairness. That is not democracy. That is a targeted erosion of political voice.
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The Liberal National Party (LNP) in Queensland is proposing legislative changes that would further restrict incarcerated persons’ rights to vote in state elections, referendums and by-elections. The proposed changes, designed to “restore fairness” to electoral laws according to the LNP, would block persons serving sentences longer than a year from voting.
This would fundamentally erode our democratic process, excluding vulnerable and marginalised people, including First Nations people and women, from voting on issues that directly impact them. Women are the fastest-growing prison population in this country, and First Nations women are incarcerated at nearly 22 times the rate of non-Indigenous women.
You can imagine my shock when I opened my emails on a Friday afternoon in December - the same day most offices shut down until January 5 - and found a call for submissions on the proposed amendments that closed on January 2nd.
The media release from the LNP stated that “criminals” serving “lengthy” sentences would be excluded from voting. The last amendments to the laws were in 2007, when activist Aunty Vicki Roach mounted a legal challenge and the total ban for incarcerated people to vote was lifted, reinstating the right to vote for incarcerated persons serving less than 3 years.
It baffles me that our state government could move out of step with the entire country and be the first state to legislate a tighter restriction on voting for incarcerated persons. These are the same people who are most impacted by such “tough on crime” governments, and who may very well vote them out of power if they weren’t denied the right to do so. We must ask how this exclusion promotes community safety.
First Nations people are over-represented in Queensland prisons, are more likely to receive longer sentences for less serious offences and often end up serving more than 12 months. This means they are disproportionately locked out of the democratic process, not because their offences are more serious, but because the intersection of policing, sentencing, and systemic racism leads to harsher outcomes.
When you design laws that hinge voting rights on sentence length, you are effectively designing laws that disproportionately silence First Nations people. That is not fairness. That is not democracy. That is a targeted erosion of political voice.
Women—particularly First Nations women—are another group quietly written out of this conversation. At a time when women’s bodies and reproductive rights are being held at random by conservative governments, women in prison deserve the right to vote and deserve the right to decide who makes the laws that impact their own bodies.
The majority of women in prison are survivors of violence, trauma, poverty and state intervention. Many are on remand or serving short sentences for low-level, non-violent offences related to survival. Stripping them of the right to vote doesn’t make Queensland safer; it just further punishes people who have already been failed by systems meant to protect them. Democracy cannot function if it only represents those who are free, affluent, or socially acceptable.
Punishment and accountability shouldn’t mean people in prison don’t get to have a say in who represents us in government. The right to vote is not a reward for good behaviour—it is a fundamental pillar of our society. Removing it creates a dangerous precedent: that some people’s voices matter less, or not at all.
There is a reason every other Australian jurisdiction has moved toward expanding civic participation, not restricting it. Internationally, countries that allow incarcerated people to vote—like Norway, Canada and New Zealand—do so because the evidence is clear: keeping people connected to civic life supports rehabilitation, reduces recidivism, and strengthens community belonging. Democracies function best when everyone has a stake in the system.
If Queensland chooses instead to limit voting rights, we are choosing to entrench inequality, silence the very communities most impacted by government decision-making, and drift backwards into punitive policy that does nothing to improve community safety. Disenfranchisement has never prevented crime. It has only ever prevented democracy.
If we truly care about safer communities, about reducing reoffending, and about fairness, then we must protect the right to vote for all Queenslanders, including those behind bars. We should all be concerned when governments want less people to participate in the democratic process. We should be expanding and encouraging more people to participate - especially mob, especially women.
About the author
Tahlia Isaac
Tahlia is a Koori woman, mother of 2 young boys, and the founder and CEO of Project:herSELF. The organisation is focused on building up women who have had their lives impacted through incarceration and changing the narrative about women who go to prison.
Tahlia has intersectional lived experiences resulting in involvement with the criminal legal system. She has a post graduate degree in criminology and criminal justice and an undergraduate degree in business. She is a champion for social inclusion and holds the view that women are the thread that holds our community together; we should remember that without women, families and communities fall apart.
You can find Project:herSELF on Instagram and support Tahlia’s work by making a donation via the website: projectherself.org.au.
When did the liberal party become a front for white supremacy!?