Wednesday, 18 February 2026

 John LISTER (Werribee) (10:26): It has been one year since I had the honour of being elected by the people of Werribee to this place, and I wanted to take this opportunity to speak to the Electoral Matters Committee report intothe 2025 Prahran and Werribee by-elections. You can see where I am going here. By-elections are never easy, and I feel for the people of Nepean, who are about to be forced to do it twice in one year. As this thorough and well-considered report notes, the tight timeframes and Victorian Electoral Commission preparedness caused some issues. However, the by-elections as a whole were conducted fairly and democratically. I did not participate in the review. Instead, I was focused on standing up an electorate office and getting on with the job that I was elected to do. However, I thank the committee for considering all the evidence from the different parties, some members of the public as well as the VEC, and the leadership of my electorate neighbour, the member for Tarneit, in establishing solid recommendations for future elections.

I do just want to have a look at some of the different findings and recommendations from the report. In particular, one thing came up as I was out on the doors talking to people. Quite often, the second question you get after ‘Who are you?’ is ‘How do I vote?’ I had a lot of saying to me, ‘I’ve got lots of kids. I’ve got one kid who may have sensory issues. It’s very difficult to take them to pre-poll, particularly when we’ve got different parties all vying for attention as well as the space being quite busy, particularly some of the pre-poll locations in Werribee, which were quite cramped. So I don’t necessarily want to go down then.’ There are also a lot of people who, of course, are entitled to vote but may also have sensory issues as well. I really do commend the VEC, the electoral commission, for running the trial of the low sensory voting centres as part of the by-election, particularly in Werribee. I spoke about that a lot on the doors, and I know from that feedback from punters who went down there just how much they appreciated having a chance to vote in peace and quiet, because it is a very important thing, a by-election. It is making a choice for your community about who represents your community. There are a lot of other discussions around by-elections – about what they mean for government or what they mean for the opposition – but in the end it is about who you want to represent your towns.

The other finding that I wanted to comment on is finding 14 around the 10-day period of pre-polling. I think everyone here in this chamber, or almost everyone here, spent a bit of time at pre-poll in the heat in Werribee and up in Wyndham Vale. The finding says that the 10-day period was excessive, and their recommendation to the government is that they look to amend the Electoral Act 2002 to reduce the early voting period to seven days and mobile voting to nine days before the election day. I think it is particularly important that we do have pre-poll. It is an important chance for people who may be working. I represent a town that very much has people who are shift workers, who work a lot on weekends in different fields, so it is important to have pre-poll. However, the length of pre-poll and what can happen in those 10 days around the discussions, the commitments – we did not get many commitments from the Liberals, but the commitments certainly from us change what the discourse is. I think it is a little bit unfair that in that 10-day period, if you vote early on the first day of early voting, you may wish to change your mind before what is actually election day. There is a reason why we call it ‘election day’.

Finding 23 also spoke to the behaviour of some of the voting centre staff, and I want to quickly reflect on this a little bit, as I saw firsthand what was referenced in the report, particularly around Manor Lakes on the day of the election. I was quite shocked to see Jeff Kennett rolled out and seeing the behaviour of one VEC official singing the praises of the Liberal Party. Look, we all have very eclectic supporters in our parties, but I did not expect them to be wearing a VEC vest, so I think it is particularly important to have that training there.

Despite some concerns around VEC processes, I would like to again thank the staff at the VEC for their diligence and hard work. Many of them are Wyndham locals committed to democracy and fairness. In reflecting on campaign volunteers as well, I would like to thank all the Labor members and families and friends who join me every day to share with the people of Werribee how Labor is on their side. In the 12 months since being declared the member I have worked hard to get our new law courts open, stronger bail and safety laws, a huge public transport uplift and major road projects out of the ground, like our Ballan Road upgrade. By-elections can send a clear message that the community sees what is being done, but we always need to have our eye on what is next. As I committed at that by-election, I commit again that I will be out every day working in government, fighting for our community.