The UK’s recent general election was undoubtedly historically significant. But for me, it was also personally significant, because I was able to cast my first British ballot.
This is despite me having lived in the UK for only a few months, and not being a British citizen. The same circumstances would disqualify me in Australia and most other countries.
Yet in the UK, Commonwealth citizens are given special treatment. Provided you satisfy age and residence requirements (in practice, that means holding a non-visitor visa), you can enrol to be a bona fide elector.
Australia cut off similar Commonwealth reciprocity in 1984. “British subjects” who had lived in Australia for at least six months and had enrolled to vote before January 26, 1984 can still cast their ballots in federal elections today, but since then we haven’t accepted new Commonwealth applications. Asserting our independence from the Commonwealth had its virtues — dolling out ballot papers on the basis of Britain’s former colonial exploits was and remains antiquated in a decolonising world.
Yet strangely enough, as migration patterns swelled the number of non-citizens, Britain’s system accidentally became more progressive. It enfranchises a larger proportion of the nation’s immigrants, who, had they migrated to Australia instead, would be denied a say in who writes the laws they must abide by. Australia replaced an arbitrary enfranchisement of some non-citizen immigrants with an exclusion of all of them.
All of this got me thinking: should citizenship really be a requirement for voting at all? Why not enfranchise all residents, no matter their citizenship?
A silenced minority
Consider the sheer number of people that citizenship requirements disenfranchise.
At the time of the last census (August 2021), there were 1.2 million permanent residents in Australia who had arrived since 2000. These individuals cannot vote even if they are of voting age, despite some of them having lived here for over two decades.
In addition, there were 1.6 million people living in Australia on temporary visas — skilled workers, students, New Zealanders and others, who also cannot vote even if they are of voting age.
Together these cohorts totalled 2.8 million — approximately 10% of the population. Home Affairs data suggests this had since risen to at least 3.4 million by 2022.
Sure, some of these people will be below voting age. But even excluding the young, you’re left with a huge disenfranchised segment of the population.
Some might claim that if these people really want to vote, they should become citizens. But that’s hardly a simple matter. It’s improving somewhat under the Albanese government, but citizenship remains a long and expensive process, and not always desirable even for committed Aussies.
In the meantime, there are millions of people — colleagues, neighbours, friends — who are paying taxes and obeying laws in Australia which they aren’t allowed to participate in the formation of. Some of my close friends back in Melbourne, who are well and truly invested in the nation’s future, are unable to vote due to their citizenship status.
Critics might claim that non-citizens aren’t yet sufficiently invested in the long-term success of the nation. But this is a shallow view of migrants’ outlooks, and in my view, overly sceptical.
The University of Melbourne’s Joo-Cheong Tham, an advocate for permanent resident voting rights, draws on the notion of “social citizenship” — “it is not the legal status of citizenship or the nation-state’s say-so that determines whether an individual is a member of the community … Rather, it is the connections a person has to his or her place of residence”.
Can we really say those on multi-year or permanent visas don’t have the propensity for forming such connections, which ought to give rise to investment in the nation’s success? Of course they do — if not, why grant them visas in the first place?
Government by the people
Broadening the franchise in this manner is hardly revolutionary — indeed it has already been implemented across the pond. In New Zealand, permanent residents who have lived there for 12 months or more can vote. In South Korea, the same is true after three years.
And there are moves afoot to extend the franchise elsewhere. France, for instance, allows all EU citizens to vote already, and there is an ongoing campaign to allow all residents to vote regardless of their citizenship. It is supported by prominent mayors and politicians — though the increased representation of the far right in government could now imperil its success.
There are surely some appropriate limits on voting eligibility – allowing a tourist on a Contiki tour to vote (not that they’d probably want to anyway) would be obviously ludicrous. But if someone has a visa to stay for an extended period, why shouldn’t their views be taken into account in their new home country, like mine were?
Politicians are often overly cautious with such democratic reforms, ironically for fear they might appear to be “buying more votes”. Being both morally persuasive and potentially electorally useful is somehow too good a deal. This instinct appears to have sunk recent efforts to increase representation of territories in the Australian Senate. And unlike UK Labour, there is no talk from Anthony Albanese about lowering the voting age — another worthy reform.
Yet democratisation should not be controversial. Democracy is increasingly imperilled in other parts of the world. To defend our commitment to it, we ought to extend its benefits to as many residents as practicable.
Should voting rights be extended to non-citizens in Australia? Let us know your thoughts by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.
