Prisoners’ Voting Rights
Two decades ago the High Court ruled in the Roach Case that there are constitutional limits on preventing prisoners voting in federal elections. Yet, prisoners face a range of barriers to exercise their right to vote.
It was only at the 2025 Federal Election that all states and territories allowed Australian Electoral Commission mobile polling booths to enter prisons.
Prisoners are less likely than other Australians to be enrolled to vote.
And Queensland recently enacted legislation to further restrict the number of prisoners eligible to vote in state elections.
Presented by the Castan Centre for Human Rights Law and the Australian Association of Constitutional Law, this lunchtime webinar explores prisoners’ voting rights today.
Webinar Details
Prisoners' Voting Rights
Date: Tuesday 13 October 2026
Time: 1pm - 2.15pm AEDT
Zoom Online Webinar
Speakers
Dr Grant Davies
Tasmanian Ombudsman and Custodial Inspector
Dr Grant Davies will speak to the Office of the Custodial Inspector’s report ‘Overcoming Barriers to Voting in Prison: Review Report 2025’.
Ruimin Gao
Acting Director, Queensland Prisoners’ Legal Service
Ruimin will present on PLS’s 2025 Submission on prisoners’ voting rights in Queensland.
Denham Sadler
Chief Reporter, About Time
About Time is Australia’s national prison newspaper.
Denham will speak to his 2026 report ‘Huge Number of Election Votes From Prison Not Counted’.
Moderators
Associate Professor Ronli Sifris
Director, Castan Centre for Human Rights Law
Ronli Sifris is an Associate Professor in Monash University’s Faculty of Law and Director of the Castan Centre for Human Rights Law. In an effort to influence real legal change, in 2025-2026 Ronli led the Australian Law Reform Commission’s national review into surrogacy law, policy and practice. She has made submissions to several Parliamentary/Law Reform Commission Inquiries and has been cited in the resulting reports. She achieved significant research impact when the High Court of Australia accepted her application to appear as “amicus curiae” to assist in its deliberations on a constitutional challenge in the case of Clubb v Edwards and extensively quoted her empirical research in the final judgment.
Professor Luke Beck
Monash University, Faculty of Law
Luke Beck is a Professor of Constitutional Law. He is also Associate Dean (Education) of the Faculty of Law. Luke is a leading scholar in the field of separation of religion and government and religious freedom under the Australian Constitution. He has also published on various other aspects of constitutional and public law, including misinformation in political advertising, referendum law and freedom of speech issues.
Enquiries
For all event enquiries, please email: law-engagement@monash.edu