Thursday, 11 September 2025

Bills

Electoral Amendment (Group Voting and Vote Counting) Bill 2025

Introduction

Tim READ (Brunswick) (09:37): I move:

That I introduce a bill for an act to amend the Electoral Act 2002 to abolish group voting tickets in Council elections, to change the way surplus votes are counted in Council elections and for other purposes.

Victoria is the only state where politicians are allowed to decide where your preferences go. When voting above the line in Victoria, as 90 per cent of voters do, voters are only allowed to mark their first preference. Second and subsequent preferences are ignored, and preferences go where your first preference party chooses. So parties do deals, often lubricated with cash, which decide where Victorians’ preferences go. When Victorians vote above the line, to quote Antony Green, ‘that sends their vote off on a preferential magical mystery tour across the ballot paper’, and deals are often structured to help micro-parties accumulate preference votes at the expense of other parties that received a much higher primary vote. With 12 months left for the term of this Parliament, it is becoming urgent for the government to legislate to eliminate group voting and to allow time for the Victorian Electoral Commission (VEC) to implement the change, which is why we need to debate this bill now.

We have saved the government time by drafting the Electoral Amendment (Group Voting and Vote Counting) Bill 2025. There is nothing wrong with getting elected on second or lower preferences, and there is nothing undemocratic about a candidate overtaking another with a higher primary vote by accumulating preferences, if that is what the voters want. But when the voters have no control over where their preferences go, as is still the case when voting in the Victorian upper house, then that is not democracy.

Preventing voters from choosing and leaving it to dealers like the infamous preference whisperer leads to some remarkable outcomes. In 2018 Transport Matters won the final seat in the Eastern Metro Region from a primary vote of 0.63 per cent.

Voters for Animal Justice probably had no idea that their vote would elect a taxi campaigner, but that is what the deal meant. The Commonwealth and the states that use this system have all discarded group voting and now ask voters to number their preferences above or below the line. The last state to eliminate group voting was Western Australia, whose Labor government could not justify it with a straight face after the Daylight Saving candidate was elected off a primary vote of 98 votes. He thought he was so unlikely to win he was in the US at the time of the election and had to fly back to take his seat. It is worth asking what other micro-parties could be lurking around the next Victorian election, hoping to win a seat off a few hundred votes. So far, we have been spared the worst, but the far right is organising, and with group voting, the outcomes are in the hands of just a few backroom dealers. The WA Labor government got rid of group voting and decided that Western Australian voters would probably do a better job of choosing who to preference, and that is what this bill does. It allows voters to number their preferences above the line, just as we all did in the federal election a few months ago. It eliminates group voting tickets.

Just as the WA government did, this bill also replaces the outdated and curiously named inclusive Gregory method of counting surplus votes, which was designed when computers were not available to help with complex counts. That method gives surplus votes from some candidates a far greater value than the votes for the other candidates. We replace this with a weighted method so each vote is of equal value at all stages of the count. This is urgent now because there is not much time left to start the process of electoral reform ahead of the next election. We have drafted the legislation. That needs to be passed and then the VEC needs time to prepare for the new, more democratic system. At least we will not need to teach Victorians how to use it, because we do this in every federal election. Politics is about trust, and it is time Victorian Labor trusted Victorian voters to allocate their own preferences.

Dylan WIGHT (Tarneit) (09:42): I usually say it is a pleasure, but it is incredibly frustrating to stand up here this morning to not speak in favour of the bill that has been introduced, a bill that is nothing more than an absolute stunt by the Greens political party. I think they have been sitting in here during the week watching the opposition act like children for the entire week so they thought they would get in on the act. A proposed –

The SPEAKER: Member for Tarneit, if you cannot speak to the bill that is being introduced, I will sit you down.

Dylan WIGHT: I will speak to the bill that is being introduced, Speaker – sorry – a bill that I flicked through very briefly before I came into the chamber. It is about four pages long and sort of looks like it has been written on the back of an envelope – student politics sort of stuff. Group voting tickets is an issue that has been spoken about in a roundabout way since the beginning of this term. We know what the Greens’ view is on it – we already know that; we know what it is. We do not need a ridiculous stunt and a ridiculous attempt to introduce an ill-thought-out piece of legislation to know what their view is. We know what their view is because their party has presented their view –

James Newbury interjected.

The SPEAKER: Member for Brighton!

Dylan WIGHT: at two different inquiries. What I would like to say about this and why I think this stunt this morning is so ridiculous and so dangerous is because the Electoral Matters Committee, of which I am the chair, has just undertaken an inquiry into the potential –

Members interjecting.

The SPEAKER: Member for Kew! Member for Brighton, this is your last warning.

Dylan WIGHT: It has just conducted an inquiry into structure of the upper house. Accompanying that was group voting tickets and the system we use to count votes. The point that I would make is that that inquiry is yet to hand down a report but will do so by the end of the year. My view, and I think the view of everybody on at least this side of the house but I would say the entire Parliament, is the attempt to force, foreshadow or even circumvent the recommendations of that inquiry is incredibly irresponsible by the Greens political party, and they are doing it for no other reason than they think that they can gain political benefit out of the elimination of group voting tickets. That is the only reason that they are doing this. ‘The Greens do politics differently’ – I mean, not really. This is nothing more than grandstanding, a cheap political stunt for their own political gain.

Any electoral reform in Victoria is a serious, serious issue – one that warrants far more consideration, consultation and thought than an ill-thought-out, ill-conceived, opportunistic piece of legislation introduced by the Greens political party on a Thursday morning in the Victorian Parliament. The advice that I would give to the Greens political party is to wait for the report to be tabled from the inquiry into the structure of the Victorian upper house and then engage. You have got a member on the committee, so engage in good faith in deliberation and then engage in good faith thereafter. Introducing this bill this morning is doing none of that. It is a cheap political stunt. The Greens or anybody else in this house can go onto the Parliament website and go through the evidence that was provided within that inquiry. They can go through that and they can form their own view, and then they can wait for the report to be tabled like everybody else does. This piece of legislation introduced by the Greens should not be supported by anybody within this chamber. It should not be supported by anybody in the Victorian Parliament, because it is nothing more than cheap opportunism, and I would suggest that we all vote it down.

Ellen SANDELL (Melbourne) (09:46): I rise to support the member for Brunswick, who has moved to urgently debate the Electoral Amendment (Group Voting and Vote Counting) Bill 2025, which will eliminate the undemocratic group voting ticket system where political parties and preference whisperers direct voters’ preferences and will finally, if passed, allow Victorian voters themselves to choose where their vote goes, as should be the case in any democracy. It is urgent we debate it today because this change cannot be made at the last minute. The Victorian Electoral Commission needs time to implement it, and time is running out.

I have to say I was quite surprised by the contribution by the member for Tarneit, because I had thought that he was supportive of giving Victorians the right to decide where their vote goes rather than giving that right to preference whisperers. He talked about needing to wait for the outcome of a parliamentary inquiry, but something the member for Tarneit should know is that we already had a parliamentary inquiry into the group voting system by the Electoral Matters Committee. That report came out and said explicitly that we should not wait for another report into how the upper house might change overall before we implement group voting ticket reform. It said explicitly that we could reform the group voting ticket system itself, by itself, without having to wait for other reform which might need a referendum. I understand that report was made under his predecessor, a different chair of the EMC. Perhaps that is a bit of a sore point, but maybe he needs to go back and read that report by his predecessor, which says in fact the opposite of what he said in the chamber today.

Currently you can buy a seat in the Victorian upper house for the pretty cheap price, I have to say, of $55,000. I can see some members in this place checking their phones and their computers, perhaps marginal seat holders looking to see how much is in their account. Let me tell you how this works. First, you pay a preference whisperer like Glenn Druery $5000 as a down payment to participate in the system. Then you need 500 signatures to form a micro-party. And of course you need to come up with a catchy name to trick voters into thinking they are voting for an actual, real political party with real policies rather than a front for a preference whisperer. Then Druery or another preference whisperer will go and organise preference deals with multiple micro-parties, swapping preferences on group voting tickets. Then, as Antony Green said, their vote will go off on a magical mystery tour across the ballot in a preference spiral and someone will eventually get elected who often has the opposite policies of the parties that the voters actually voted for, even though they got only a tiny, tiny fraction of a per cent of the vote.

Then when you get elected you pay Glenn Druery the rest of the $55,000 fee. And are you accountable to the Victorian voters? No. You are accountable to Glenn Druery, who is the one who got you elected. Unfortunately, this is legal in Victoria, and Victoria has elected several upper house parties this way. After the 2018 election 20 per cent of the upper house was filled with people elected in this undemocratic way. Twenty per cent of our upper house were elected and the voters did not get to decide their preferences. It is urgent that we fix this undemocratic quirk in Victoria’s system that allows people to essentially be scammed.

In 2018 the Sustainable Australia Party were elected with a first preference vote of 1.3 per cent, overtaking parties that got 10 times that vote. That is not democracy. The Liberal Democrats got in on 0.84 per cent of the vote. Transport Matters got in on 0.63 per cent of the vote. The Australian Liberty Alliance got a primary vote of 0.56 per cent and only just missed out. They were a far-right outfit that would have been right at home marching in the anti-immigration rally the other day. As the member for Brunswick has said, it is urgent because we have seen what is happening with the rise of far-right extremism. We have seen neo-Nazis organising. We have seen them say that they have intentions to start their own political parties. They could get 98 votes like the Daylight Saving Party did in WA, stitch up a preference deal with a preference whisperer and get elected to the Victorian upper house. I do not think Victorians want their laws decided by far-right extremists. I have faith in Victorians. I have faith in the Victorian voters that they should decide where their votes go. They should decide who gets elected to our Parliament. I hope everyone agrees.

Will FOWLES (Ringwood) (09:52): It is my pleasure to make a contribution on this procedural motion to move a bill to consider group voting tickets. The work around group voting tickets was quite well advanced when I was chair of the Electoral Matters Committee. There have been two chairs subsequently. I am probably speaking against my own interest as one who may or may not be contemplating a chance at a campaign in the upper house, but group voting tickets are a democratic abomination. They ought to be dealt with.

The suggestion from the member for Tarneit that a report that is going to get tabled at the end of the year is going to produce a result that will be ready for action, ready to be put into the field, by November of next year is farcical. I mean, Labor pretends to care about homelessness: three years it took them to respond to the upper house report on homelessness. That is three years on an issue they actually say they care about. What chance is there then that they are actually going to get their act together and respond to this prospective report, which may or may not land this year and get this very, very important reform done? I say zero – absolutely no chance whatsoever that this government has any reformist zeal. You have got a non-reformist minister responsible for this part of the legislative landscape. You have got your third electoral matters chair in the space of three years, and you have got a report that is yet to be written that maybe will be dealing with this issue and in turn government has to deal with that. Well, there is not a prayer, not a hope, that this gets done – on my political assessment of the moving parts here – in time for this election.

That is a missed opportunity by Labor, because what you have is the wholly undemocratic outcomes we see in the other place where people are paying money to – hell, we have got privilege in here – the basically criminal activity of Glenn Druery, who is happily in there shovelling votes for cash. He is just organising this preference-harvesting exercise in the most cynical and base manipulation of the process imaginable. It is a cynical, base and I would say criminal manipulation of the process, because to traduce the democratic intent of Victorians is simply bloody outrageous. He ought to be held furiously to account, and we should shut the door. We should put an end to that particular money-making enterprise. We should put an end to it as soon as we possibly can. And that means dealing with the group voting tickets issue. I think it is a great thing that the Greens have put this issue before the house today, because it is an issue that needs to be dealt with urgently.

The Greens are in fact right when they say it will take the Victorian Electoral Commission some time to get their heads around it. I know the member for Bulleen and I sing from the one song sheet on this. The capacity of the VEC to frankly tie their own shoelaces is limited most days of the week, and their ability to introduce and implement and fairly run an election in this period of time under a new system is frankly pretty slim. So my assessment is that if we do not deal with this legislation, we have absolutely no prayer of getting reforms to group voting tickets done in this term – absolutely no prayer.

It needs reformist zeal from the government. It needs reformist zeal from the minister. It needs a consensus on the floor of the house. It needs the ability of everyone to get around this important and necessary reform. More importantly, it needs bipartisan support, because the micros upstairs are clearly going to vote in their own interest and vote against it. We are pretty familiar with political parties voting in their own interest in this place, clearly, but that would be yet another thwarting of the democratic intent of Victorians. I think voters are fed up, frankly. They have had the reform federally, and they have had the reform in other states. They are fed up of having predetermined preference deals dictating the elected member outcomes in the upper house in the state of Victoria.

It is an important reform. It needs to happen. It needs to happen quickly if the VEC are going to be even within daylight of being able to conduct an election under a new system, because their competence, frankly, on most matters is a matter of not much conjecture. Certainly, they might very well argue that they are good at this stuff, but when I was chair of the Electoral Matters Committee, the reports they served up, the inaccuracies, the denial of claims that voting centres had been shut down when in fact they had been shut down on election day – they are not a competent organisation. Their resources are not well directed as an organisation. If we are going to give them any chance of getting their head around this reform, we need to debate this legislation. We need to debate it in the next sitting week and ensure that this reform finally gets done.

The SPEAKER: Before I call the member for Preston, can I just remind members about the use of unparliamentary language and also the use of ‘you’, which is a reflection on the Chair.

Nathan LAMBERT (Preston) (09:57): I rise to oppose the introduction of the bill by the member for Brunswick. Certainly no-one in this place is ignoring the issue of group voting tickets. Of course all of us who saw that particular video featuring the Angry Victorians Party and Glenn Druery – I think I would safely say that I do not agree with Heston Russell or Chris Burson on almost any political matter, but I do recognise their bravery in coming forward and really showing everyone what was going on. It was a video that shocked all of us with concern for our electoral system.

Having said that, though, for very good reason we have always adopted a cautious approach to reforming the electoral system of this state, and that is of course because when we do so we are changing rules that we also stand to benefit from as parties. It is a process that should always be done with care.

As all of the speakers are well aware, the Electoral Matters Committee has looked into this issue, as the member for Tarneit said, in some detail. There is an entire chapter of the most recent report, chapter 6, devoted to reforming the upper house system. Indeed, as the Greens have mentioned, recommendation 17 of that chapter addresses group voting tickets. Indeed separate recommendations address the weighted inclusive Gregory reforms that the member for Brunswick alluded to. Importantly, everyone who is familiar with that body of the work and the work of the Electoral Matters Committee knows that there are significant unanswered questions that the report notes but does not answer.

I can say to you that one unanswered question for the Greens to answer, which they have not yet been able to, is: why is it that as a political party they supported group voting tickets for years? I sat opposite members of the Greens in 2010 and literally negotiated group voting tickets with them. At no time was it suggested there was anything wrong with the system. That is because we have to recognise, and the Greens must recognise, that this all started from a very well intentioned place – to deal with problems of informality in a complex upper house ballot paper. It is also undeniable that it has now been taken by people like Glenn Druery into a very bad place that those of us talking in 2010 did not anticipate.

Fundamentally, not only is that question unanswered, but a second really important question is unanswered, which is: how are we then going to deal with the question of proportionality in the upper house? We always have the discussion in the Electoral Matters Committee. Probably all of us agree that we do not need a thousand MPs in the upper house; we do not need a massive amount of proportionality where there would be literally thousands of parties. At the same time, we probably all agree that there should not be two members in the upper house. We need to represent Victorian views more broadly. There is a right number somewhere in between. Currently that number is 40 MPs in the upper house, divided into eight regions. We all know the current structure.

But there is also no doubt that group voting tickets currently provide a bit of additional diversity into the upper house that you would not have if you removed them. This was addressed by the Electoral Matters Committee and is the precise reason that we are now finishing a report into reform of the upper house in order to answer this unanswered question: if you get rid of group voting tickets, do you have to make a counterbalancing change to maintain proportionality? The Greens in their remarks today have yet again, as they did in their testimony, refused to answer that question, despite the fact that that is a key question for people to answer.

Instead all they have brought before us is a bill that does little but restate positions that were already well known throughout the electoral matters debate and indeed a bill that I do not think brings anything new to the debate, but most importantly does not answer that question of fundamentally, do we need to –

Ellen Sandell: On a point of order, Speaker, I very much appreciate the contribution of the member for Preston, but he is misleading the house. I did actually address this directly in my speech.

The SPEAKER: That is not a point of order, member for Melbourne.

Nathan LAMBERT: It may be that the Leader of the Greens has just, in the last couple of minutes, revealed their answer to this question. I am very pleased because I asked during an Electoral Matters Committee hearing about whether they are happy to reduce the proportionality of the upper house and maintain it at the 40 members – is that right?

The SPEAKER: Through the Chair, member for Preston.

Nathan LAMBERT: Sorry, Speaker. Through you, Chair, I am pleased, perhaps, that we now do have an answer on that, but I suppose I would only put to you in the short time I have remaining that we perhaps need a little longer than the couple of minutes since we have just finally had an answer to that question.

More importantly, though, to bring you back to where I started, there is an established process for this. There is an Electoral Matters Committee process for this. As the member for Tarneit referred to, there is a report that is on its way and an inquiry that has been completed that answers and addresses those unanswered questions that I have set out in my contribution today. There is absolutely no reason to move to a bill now, when we are waiting for a process, a process the Greens know well and have participated in – a process that has been the one we have used in this Parliament to make our electoral reforms for a long period now. There is no reason to move away from that particular approach. I oppose the member for Brunswick’s bill.

Sam GROTH (Nepean) (10:02): The Liberals and Nationals will be supporting the Greens in allowing this bill to be introduced to the house, not because we necessarily agree entirely with the bill itself but because we actually do not believe that the government has a monopoly when it comes to good ideas and introducing legislation in this place. I note that the member for Tarneit said this is a frustrating thing to do this morning, but he may have missed the section of the notice paper that says ‘Introduction of bills’. It does allow any member in this place to introduce a bill.

Now, on the bill put forward by the Greens, there have been recommendations on this by the Electoral Matters Committee a number of times, as far back as 2022, and we agree that there does need to be reform in this space. But at the same time we do also note that there is an ongoing inquiry.

On the procedural debate, though, I do want to talk about the introduction of bills into this place. Seventeen times since I have been here in this chamber the opposition has moved to introduce bills, introduce legislation into this chamber, that we believe would make this state better. And what we have seen over the last three years, or the last 11 years, under this government, the Allan Labor government, and under the Andrews Labor government prior is an increase in crime. I will go through some of the private members bills that those on this side of the house have sought to introduce over the last three years that could have stopped some of the heinous crimes that we have seen over the last week in terms of the alleged murder of a 15-year-old and a 12-year-old boy in Cobblebank. I will also mention that, even though we support the Greens in this today, the Greens have only ever supported three of the bills that we have sought to introduce into this place. So while we stand here and support the Greens today on the introduction of this bill – we never seek to stifle free speech when it comes –

The SPEAKER: Member for Nepean, through the Chair!

Ben Carroll interjected.

Sam GROTH: If you want to be on their side –

The SPEAKER: Through the Chair, Member for Nepean!

Sam GROTH: The Minister for Education would like to be on the side of the Greens in terms of stifling free speech.

The SPEAKER: Through the Chair! Back to the bill before the house.

Sam GROTH: Well, on the procedural motion, I would say that speaking about bills that have previously been brought into this place not allowed to go through is completely on the procedural motion. In this place from the now Leader of the Opposition, the member for Berwick, Summary Offences Amendment (Decriminalisation of Public Drunkenness) Repeal Bill 2023 – the Greens did not turn up, and it was voted down by the government. The Summary Offences Amendment (Move-on Laws and Exclusion Orders) Bill 2023 was sought to be introduced by the Shadow Attorney-General, the member for Malvern, in November 2023; the Greens opposed the introduction of that bill. The Control of Weapons Amendment (Machetes) Bill 2023 by the member for Berwick on 28 November 2023 – almost two years ago – was brought into this place, was voted down by the government and was voted down by the Greens political party.

How many of the heinous crimes that we have seen, the machete attacks, the attacks on young people in this state, the attacks on families in their homes, could have been avoided had that bill been allowed to be introduced, to be debated, to be discussed – some of the ideas, maybe not all of them, within that bill? How many times could that have stopped what we have seen in Victoria over the last week, six months, 12 months, two years, three years, since these bills were introduced?

The Bail Amendment (Indictable Offences Whilst on Bail) Bill 2024 by Michael O’Brien, the member for Malvern, on 20 February 2024 –

Dylan Wight: On a point of order, Deputy Speaker, I was happy to let it go for a bit, but, on relevance, I cannot see how we are relevant at all here.

Sam GROTH: On the point of order, Deputy Speaker, this is a procedural debate on the introduction of a bill, and I think to debate previous bills that have been looked to be introduced into this place and the procedure behind them is completely relevant.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: I actually agree with you, member for Nepean.

Sam GROTH: I appreciate it. The Emergency Management Amendment (Port of Melbourne) Bill 2024 by the member for South-West Coast – the Greens opposed the introduction of the bill. The Sentencing Amendment (Sentencing Practices for Child Sexual Offences) Bill 2024 by the member for Malvern – the Greens did not show up to support the introduction of that bill. The Payroll Tax Amendment (Schools) Bill 2024 by the member for Kew when it comes to private schools – the Greens opposed the introduction of that bill. The Government Construction Projects Integrity Bill 2024 – isn’t that relevant this week? Imagine with what we are seeing on the front page of the Age newspaper today. Had these bills been able to be introduced, would what we are seeing on the Big Build sites under the Allan Labor government still be continuing, had the member for Caulfield been allowed to introduce that bill at the time? Well, I do note, surprisingly, the Greens did not turn up to vote for the introduction of that bill.

The Bail Amendment (Strengthening Conduct Conditions) Bill 2024 by the member for Malvern the Greens opposed. The Tobacco Amendment (Stamping Out Fire Bombings) Bill 2024 by the member for Ovens Valley in terms of the firebombings – what do you know, the Greens supported it. Oh my gosh, I found one – something they have actually supported in this place. I can go on: family violence, corrections amendment, bail amendment, control of weapons amendment, worker screening amendment. This place should have the ability to debate bills put before it.

Assembly divided on motion:

Ayes (29): Brad Battin, Jade Benham, Tim Bull, Martin Cameron, Chris Crewther, Gabrielle de Vietri, Will Fowles, Sam Groth, Matthew Guy, David Hodgett, Emma Kealy, Tim McCurdy, Cindy McLeish, James Newbury, Danny O’Brien, Michael O’Brien, Kim O’Keeffe, John Pesutto, Tim Read, Richard Riordan, Brad Rowswell, Ellen Sandell, David Southwick, Bridget Vallence, Peter Walsh, Kim Wells, Nicole Werner, Rachel Westaway, Jess Wilson

Noes (48): Jacinta Allan, Josh Bull, Anthony Carbines, Ben Carroll, Anthony Cianflone, Sarah Connolly, Chris Couzens, Jordan Crugnale, Lily D’Ambrosio, Daniela De Martino, Steve Dimopoulos, Paul Edbrooke, Eden Foster, Matt Fregon, Ella George, Luba Grigorovitch, Bronwyn Halfpenny, Katie Hall, Paul Hamer, Martha Haylett, Mathew Hilakari, Melissa Horne, Natalie Hutchins, Lauren Kathage, Sonya Kilkenny, Nathan Lambert, John Lister, Gary Maas, Alison Marchant, Kathleen Matthews-Ward, Steve McGhie, Paul Mercurio, John Mullahy, Danny Pearson, Pauline Richards, Tim Richardson, Michaela Settle, Ros Spence, Nick Staikos, Natalie Suleyman, Meng Heang Tak, Jackson Taylor, Nina Taylor, Kat Theophanous, Iwan Walters, Vicki Ward, Dylan Wight, Belinda Wilson

Motion defeated.