Wednesday, 4 March 2026

 Gabrielle WILLIAMS (Dandenong – Minister for Transport Infrastructure, Minister for Public and Active Transport) (14:44): Under standing orders I wish to advise the house of amendments to this bill and request that they be circulated.

 James NEWBURY (Brighton) (14:45): I rise to speak on the Electoral Amendment Bill 2025. As the house has noted, the government has just moved a substantive package of amendments of which I have just received a copy in the chamber. The government has previously advised those amendments relate to knocking out the nominated entities provisions of the bill but also a public service secondment power. Without being able to double-check the amendments that have just been passed to me, I take on face value the commitment that was given in relation to those amendments. In dealing with the bill today I do note that it appears the government has removed those provisions, as discussed prior to coming to the chamber, and I will speak about engagement with the government throughout my contribution.

I also under standing orders wish to advise the house of amendments to this bill and request that they be circulated. I will speak to the substance of my amendments, but I do note, as it appears that one of the amendments that the government has moved takes out a concern that the coalition had with the bill, that one of my amendments will no longer need to stand.

This bill had its genesis in two things. Firstly, a number of candidates at the last state election took umbrage with Victoria’s donation laws and the system by which the former Premier reformed the donation system. Their perceived view was that the system was unfair and as such appealed those provisions as unconstitutional in the High Court. The matter is currently before the High Court. The question is still outstanding as to whether the nominated entity provisions specifically were or are unconstitutional. For background, when that case took hold the government felt the need to develop a bill that in part acquitted concerns that those candidates had with the nominated entity provisions in the act, and so they have developed a bill – and some might say a set of quite radical amendments – to put to the applicants in the High Court matter as a way of assuaging their concerns and therefore setting aside their application.

After the section of the bill in that form was drafted, we were consulted on the bill in that form. I do note that for the house, because I do think that when it comes to the donation and electoral system more broadly Victorians deserve a robust system – a system that is fair, a system that is transparent – and the best way to achieve that in terms of electoral law more broadly is through collaboration with all members of both chambers of this place. I do note that we, the coalition, have said for some time that we would be happy to work with the government on any electoral matter, because we feel that we have ideas, insights and inputs that we can bring to development of legislation in this area, which speaks to the principles I just spoke about – about bringing integrity, about bringing robustness, about ensuring that democracy can flourish and doing it in a way that is transparent for all Victorians.

I do note that the government, since the drafting of the bill, did engage with the coalition. At the time that the drafting was put to us we raised a significant number of concerns with the nominated entity provisions in the bill and made it clear to the government that we had a raft of concerns with those provisions. But setting that aside, we felt that that did not go to the heart of the question that the two former candidates had in their application to the High Court, and I did not feel – and I do not think the coalition felt – that the matter could be set aside at that time or that it would not assuage their concerns, which has turned out to be the case. I note, therefore, that the government has moved to remove the nominated entity provisions, I think that would be fair to say, in anticipation of that case, and I can understand why that would be. That gives a little bit of background as to how we got to the amendments that the government just moved in relation to nominated entities.

The second portion of the bill – the other half, as it were – is mostly operational in relation to how the Electoral Commissioner performs their duties, concerns they have had and requests they have made in relation to their function. Not all of those asks by the commission are not controversial, and not every electoral change in the other part of the bill has been generated entirely from the Electoral Commissioner, though the majority have, to be fair.

There have been two further amendments other than the nominated entities, from the discussions I have had with the government. As I said earlier, I have not had an opportunity to cross-check the amendments that have just been moved in the house, but based on the conversation that the government has had with me – and I take them absolutely at face value – one of the amendments that has been proposed today is to remove a formal process by which the government, in the form of the public service, can move into assisting with electioneering with the electoral commission. When I became aware of the provision in the bill, looking through the bill before it was to be considered, I raised at that time a very, very serious concern about that provision in the bill. I do want to take a few moments to put on record why I have concerns, and also some history that I discovered prior to today in relation to that power, and concerns potentially moving forward. In short, what the provision would have done is formalise an ask process whereby the electoral commission could say they need staff, and the public service could provide staff to the electoral commission. I am not saying this – the Ombudsman has said the public service is politicised. I am not saying that – that is what the Ombudsman said. The Ombudsman has found and reported that the public service is politicised. In no way am I asserting that every single person in the public service is politicised – of course not. Again, that is not my assertion. This is the Ombudsman saying it.

A member interjected.

James NEWBURY: I would not reflect on the Ombudsman. The Ombudsman has found that the public service is politicised. It would be fair and reasonable to suggest that any mechanism whereby public servants are moved into the election process is concerning, especially where there is no oversight or transparency around those processes. What concerns me even more greatly is that, in being briefed on this bill, I was formally advised that that happened at the 2022 election. In 2022, before it was proposed that this power exist in this bill, the then Daniel Andrews government sent public servants into the electoral commission to electioneer. No-one knew about it. At no point has there been – and of course there was not – any transparency provided in a fair and reasonable way about that occurring. I think Victorians would want to know that. I think when they go into an election booth they think that Victorian Electoral Commission staff work there. That is who I think they expect to see there. I do not think they expect to see public servants from another area who have been pushed in. When I raised concerns about that particular power being put into the bill, and I note again part of the amendments will strike it out, the department advised the reason for that move of staff at the 2022 election was because the Victorian Electoral Commission could not find enough staff. When you hear that, you think, ‘Four weeks before an election, they’re short on staff and they don’t know what to do. What do they do? They’ve run out of staff. They don’t have enough. They can’t get enough people in. With four weeks to the election, how are they going to operate an election? We need to ask the government: can you help us with staff?’

The department advised me that the process to second staff occurred nearly a year before the election. It was formally approved by the Victorian Secretaries’ Board in February of that year, which means that the process to make that happen would have occurred at the end of the year prior, the end of 2021, to ensure that the secretaries were briefed on the issue, to ensure that a submission was put up to the secretaries’ board. The secretaries just do not get together with an idea that happened yesterday. The request would have been formulated at the end of the year prior. So one year prior to the last election, an approval process was put in place. It was approved in February, at the start of the electoral year, to move public servants into electioneering for the 2022 election – a stunning revelation.

I thank the government for hearing our concerns, and I say that in a collaborative way. I thank the government for striking out that power from the bill. It was the right thing to do, taking that power out of the bill. They heard the coalition’s concerns. I put it to them strongly and they have taken it out, and I thank them for that. I think it was the right thing to do. Clearly it was the right thing to do. However, as we saw at the last election, they did it without having the power in the first place. They did it before there was a power in a bill to do it. Before there was a power at law to do it, they struck an agreement and did it. So even though this new power has been struck out of the proposed bill, that does not stop the same thing occurring at the next election. The reason I have spent quite considerable time talking this issue through is because I would hope that we now have, on every possible occasion, questions being asked as to whether this government is sending public servants to electioneer, in what should be an electoral commission that is beyond reproach, at this forthcoming election. I hope by exposing this issue, giving context to it happening before the power was in the bill in the first place, we can ensure that there will be no requests from the electoral commission. I do not know in 2022 if the request came from the electoral commission or if the government proffered the idea. Maybe the electoral commission said it could not get enough staff and the government thought it would solve the problem. ‘I will solve your problem,’ said former Premier Daniel Andrews. ‘I will give you some of my staff.’ I do not know whether it is true or not, but what I do hope is that for the forthcoming election –

Members interjecting.

James NEWBURY: And the government laugh. They laugh because the politicised public servants who were working in electioneering were working at electoral booths. I think Victorians would be concerned by that. Whether or not Labor thinks that is a clever idea is irrelevant, because I think the public would agree. I really do. Not only does the public agree but the executive agrees – not the members in the cheap seats, but the executive – because they have taken the power out of the bill.

Gary Maas interjected.

James NEWBURY: I cannot hear you back there, mate. I think we need to ensure that our electoral commission is, beyond any question, impartial. I hope that because this issue has been raised the media and the public more broadly can now do the collective job of ensuring that does not happen again, because it was wrong, and I thank the government for removing that provision. But I think we need to be very clear on making sure that does not happen at this coming election.

The other power I will note which links very clearly to that one, which the government agreed to remove previously and which the coalition raised concerns about, is the minister’s capacity to set the location of election booths. A politically aligned minister would have had the power under the bill in its initial form to determine the location of booths. When we saw that provision in the initial bill, we said no way – no way, no way, no way – and the government took it out.

Members interjecting.

James NEWBURY: You can ask the Premier’s office, cheap seats. Ask the Premier’s office. The government took that out, and so they should have, because a minister should not have any power in relation to selecting what locations booths exist at. Clearly a political appointee would not be impartial in relation to how our elections are operated.

I have just gone through three substantive changes to the bill that the government has made to get us to the form of the bill we are at today. There are a number of other changes that we have been concerned about. I will now note, though, that on the basis that the government has taken out the public service provision, the ministerial booth-appointing position and the nominated entity provisions, we will not be opposing the bill. However, I have circulated amendments. One, as I mentioned, relates to the secondment power. Without being able to check while standing the amendments that have been circulated in this chamber, with that being struck out, that knocks out one of our proposed amendments, and I would put to the chamber that amendment now no longer needs to be moved. But there are three other amendments that I have circulated. They are textual, so unfortunately – I cannot imagine the government taking this into consideration in detail – they will not be taken to a vote in this place, but we will be moving similar amendments in the upper house.

There are three other issues, one in relation to the request which I understand has come from the Electoral Commissioner for quite broad delegation powers. The new delegation powers proposed by the bill, as I understand it – and I take the government on face value – were at a request from the commissioner to delegate authority, either where it is specifically set out in the bill or by instrument. We have concerns around those delegation powers. I think it is important that we seek to amend in that way those powers, because they are very broad delegation powers. With the Electoral Commissioner having the job of managing elections, and setting aside that we have had six by-elections in this presumably four-year term – we have one election every four years – it is not unreasonable to expect that the Electoral Commissioner would have the role of managing elections. That is not an unreasonable thing. When it comes to making significant calls around elections I think it is only reasonable for the Electoral Commissioner to make the final call when it comes to significant vote counts, when it comes to significant determinations. Our concern is that the Electoral Commissioner should make those final calls, and what this bill would effectively allow is the capacity for the commissioner to delegate some of those powers. We are concerned about that. We would say that those delegation powers are too broad, and so we have moved an amendment on that.

The second amendment I spoke to, which related to the secondment, is now null and void based on the government’s amendment to strike that out from the bill, if I take them at their word.

What this bill does in one of the amendments is remove a print house requirement on election material, and that print house requirement was put in place as a second point of contact with election materials. Currently election material requires an authorisation of the person, the candidate per se, and a print house detail. It ensures that there are two points of contact. Historically that was also put in place because if the candidate did not want to be found or had, for example, a phoney address, print house details are different in that it is a substantive business and so you could, it was thought, find the candidate through that business should you need to. That certainly is the case with material that is inappropriate or offensive – that if you cannot find someone based on the first point of contact you would through the second. It seems a very reasonable thing and a protection to the integrity of the system to have that second point of contact where potentially a candidate does not want to be found or gives a false address, so we have concerns about those print house details being removed from the act also.

There is a fourth amendment, and it is disappointing to have to put this amendment into a proposed package of amendments. From memory, from the last election, for seven of the 88 Legislative Assembly seats – I believe Sandringham is one, Brighton is another – the electoral commission still has not done full preference counts. It seems only reasonable that an electoral commission would do full counts on the outcome of a seat on election day. In fact I do not think anybody could disagree that a full count should occur in a seat. I would have thought that all 88 seats were done with haste.

I can speak to what happened in my seat, which may explain why it has not occurred in all seats and I think it has happened in others. On election night I discovered, in my seat, when the votes were being counted, that the Electoral Commissioner had determined who would come second in my seat. So for the first couple of booths they started counting, presuming to do a two-party preferred count against who they picked would come second. Well, they did not check with anyone on who might come second. They did not base it on any information. They did not start counting and then think, ‘This person might come second, so we’ll start doing a 2PP on them.’ They did it on the person who came fourth. So an hour and a half into the night, they realised that they had picked the wrong person as coming second, which completely mucked up their entire two-preference count, and that started happening in other seats. I know that booth workers were in the booths counting votes, and they said to the divisional managers, ‘You’ve got the wrong person as your second preference,’ and they said, ‘The Electoral Commissioner has said to us that we’ve got to use the name in the envelope. We weren’t allowed to change whose name was in the envelope, even as we counted.’ We got part way through the night on election night, and the electoral commission of course did first-preference counting, worked out who won on first preferences and said, ‘We won’t do any more.’ They worked out who they preference counted to 50.0001 per cent, who got one vote over the line, and then said, ‘We’re not going to do any more. We’re going to go home.’ And they did it across, as far as I am aware, seven seats.

I have not spoken to him about this, but he has made a public statement about it, especially as it related to my seat. The electoral commission then never went back and started counting votes, so Antony Green, God bless him, went to the electoral commission and started counting votes for it, purely because he loves elections. Antony Green, who we are all sad has retired, went and counted the Brighton votes and got me a two-party preference count. Good on him – thank you, Antony Green. But it should not be that way. So an amendment that we have moved will require a full two-party preference count in all 88 seats in the Assembly. I hope that when the amendments are considered in the other place, all members – though, these amendments will be considered in detail in the Council, so they might see ‘Assembly’ and they might knock them out purely on the basis of –

Danny O’Brien interjected.

James NEWBURY: No, they should not, but they might, purely on the basis of the difference in chambers. But I hope that the government, I hope that the cross-party members, can see the obviousness of an election commission counting votes in seats to their final outcome.

This bill, as I mentioned throughout the contribution, has had a chequered history. To the government’s credit, we have reached a bill today that the coalition will not oppose, because matters in the bill which were of significant concern to the coalition have been removed. I note that, and I noted the collaboration that has occurred, as it should have, because every Victorian wants to see a robust system that was formed through collaboration with all members of the Parliament. I hope that collaboration on electoral matters can continue. The coalition will not be opposing this bill.

 Dylan WIGHT (Tarneit) (15:15): It gives me great pleasure to rise this afternoon to speak on the Electoral Amendment Bill 2025. It is always a great pleasure to follow the ramblings of the member for Brighton. I will give him immense credit for getting the full half hour in. I do not know how he does it with a straight face. I cannot call the member for Brighton a liar, because that would be unparliamentary, so I will not. He just really struggles with the truth sometimes and very rarely tells the truth. But we do agree on a couple of things. We absolutely and obviously agree on the importance of the independence of the Victorian Electoral Commission. I think we all agree with that. It is, and I have said it before in this place, a fundamental pillar of our democracy, the most important part of our democracy. Making sure that the VEC is beyond reproach, is independent and has all the tools that it needs to be able to run free and fair elections in our state is exactly what these amendments do. They assist the VEC in running free and fair elections, and it is a timely bill, obviously, given an election is coming up on 28 November this year.

The member for Brighton mentioned, rightly, that house amendments were circulated at the beginning of this debate by I believe the Minister for Transport Infrastructure. Those are obviously important. There is a case pending in the High Court. The bill originally included amendments to the political finance scheme, which is in part 12 of the act, dealing with nominated entities. But as I said, there is a case pending in the High Court. The High Court chose to hear that case. There will be a ruling given in coming months, so it would be inappropriate for us to include content within this piece of legislation that will be deliberated upon by the High Court. Those amendments have been circulated and according to the member for Brighton they have been accepted.

This bill is in response to and acquits several recommendations across a number of reports by the Parliament’s Electoral Matters Committee and also recommendations by the Victorian Electoral Commission and the electoral review expert panel. It makes what may seem like small changes, but they are changes that have been recommended for some time all the same. These are the first amendments to the Electoral Act 2002 since 2018.

Elections, in how they are delivered and how they operate, are changing. They are changing with every single election that we have, so we need to make sure that the Electoral Act stays relevant and gives the VEC the authority, the flexibility and all the tools that they need to be able to run elections efficiently, because it is becoming more and more difficult. We know that. I think elections are becoming tenser. I could go further than that, but they are certainly becoming tenser and harder. There are obviously complexities with staffing and resourcing at the electoral commission, so we need to make sure that when the VEC makes strong recommendations that the Electoral Matters Committee accepts we can be in a position to make the amendments that we need to to give the VEC, as I said, the tools to deliver elections in the best way possible.

The bill contains four reforms to address operational issues within the political finance scheme. They go to the VEC’s ability to recover outstanding debt from former registered political parties, they enable the VEC to exclude GST from claimable expenditure for funding under the Electoral Act and they increase protections for the personal information of silent electors, which I think is incredibly important given some of the reasons why people are silent electors. If we think of people that may have experienced family violence or people that could be in witness protection programs – all sorts of different reasons – that is obviously something that is incredibly important, and making sure that the VEC has the capacity to do that is really important for obvious reasons. They also clarify that nothing in the act is intended to disturb the common-law rule that an unincorporated political party’s internal conduct is not justiciable.

It also makes several amendments to update electoral timings and processes. We have heard from the VEC that the timing of elections or certain things that have to happen within elections can make it incredibly difficult for the VEC in terms of having the time to turn this stuff around and to stand up an election prior to pre-poll specifically and for election day. So we have brought forward the deadline for applications for registering a political party to 180 days. Before this amendment it was at 120 days. I think we can all probably agree that about four months out from an election, registering a political party is pretty late and there is a fair bit of work that has to go around that, so bringing that forward to 180 days I think is just a logical step to take. That would mean – I do not know the exact days – if you want to register a political party prior to this election I think you would have about a couple of months left. I think we are at 200 and something days –

A member interjected.

Dylan WIGHT: The member for Mordialloc did tell me yesterday, but I forget. We are also going to bring forward the close of the electoral roll to the date of the writ instead of seven days after the date of the writ – once again just giving the VEC some more time to get everything in order. We are also going to amend the final nomination date to become a candidate to be six days after the issue of the writ instead of 10 – after expiration of the Assembly – and align the deadline for nominations for registered political party endorsed and independent candidates to be noon of the final nomination day.

They may feel like small changes, but they are changes that increase the VEC’s capacity to run free, fair and competent elections. As I said, the VEC cop their fair whack in this place during contributions, but the running of elections is becoming harder and harder and harder and harder as our population grows and as the amount of political parties and candidates that nominate explode. The running of elections is becoming harder, and we need to make sure that we are giving the VEC every tool and every opportunity we can to make their job of running free and fair elections easier. They will make mistakes from time to time, but in this place we do have the capacity to legislate to try and make it as easy as possible.

The last one that I will touch on is the pre-poll dates – shortening the length of pre-poll from 14 to 10 ‍days, which I know everyone in here is pretty stoked with. I might be a weirdo, but I personally love pre-poll. I like standing at pre-poll. It will be at the VEC’s discretion as to the timing of pre-poll on the specific days when the pre-poll opens, when the pre-poll closes and whether the Sunday will be a pre-poll day within that span of 10 days, but that is another major change as well.

As I said, the independence of the VEC and its capacity to run free and fair elections in a competent way is the most fundamental pillar of our democracy, and this piece of legislation hopefully makes their capacity to do that just a little bit easier. I commend the bill to the house.

 Danny O’BRIEN (Gippsland South) (15:25): I am pleased to rise to speak on the Electoral Amendment Bill 2025. This is a very different bill than the one that was introduced late last year, and for good reasons. We are certainly pleased that it is a very different bill because there were a number of concerns. It is in fact the same bill, but it is now being amended by the government through a series of house amendments, and we are very pleased to see those house amendments coming forward because there is a level of concern in the community, not least among political parties, about the issue of nominated entities and public funding and donations – all of those issues wrapped up together. A current case in the High Court has created a level of uncertainty, which is why the government is seeking to remove those aspects of this bill in relation to nominated entities, because we await the judgement of the High Court on that matter.

There are a number of other aspects of this legislation that the member for Brighton has gone through and raised our concerns about, and there are other aspects of which we are supportive. As the member for Tarneit indicated, running elections is increasingly difficult, increasingly complicated and increasingly resource intensive, and I might say likewise for running in elections, as I am sure all members of this place know. I do not think anyone ever finds it easy or simple to find supporters and helpers to work and help out. That brings to mind the one change in this with respect to pre-poll. Early voting is loved by voters and probably loathed by most of us in the actual political game. I love pre-poll; I love the engagement you get. As a sitting MP, having the ability to go and stand there for the full period – and most of us have got at least two booths, particularly in regional areas – is great to get engagement. You see people that you do not see for four years sometimes, but it is a very important opportunity for people to be able to vote and to get in and do that.

I have had a concern, though, for a long time, that we have morphed from having an election day to an election fortnight, and that has fundamentally changed the nature of elections. There has not really been a lot of debate about that over time. Certainly electoral commissions across the country, including the AEC and the Victorian Electoral Commission, have embraced early voting because they see it as a way to ensure full enfranchisement of the voter, especially people who have issues in being able to get out and vote, and pre-poll does that. Early voting gives them that opportunity. But it has got to be within reason. When you have got postal voting, when you have got two weeks of early voting, when you have got voting on the day and when you have got late voting on Thursday nights as in the last couple of elections, there are plenty of opportunities, and there is really not a lot of excuses for people not to be able to vote.

Particularly in Victoria, and I think I am right in saying every other state where we have fixed terms, it is not like an election should be a surprise to anyone. It is not called in the middle of ‘Oh, well, I was going on holidays, and you’ve called an election, so I can’t get to vote.’ We know when the Victorian election is going to be every four years, so people can make arrangements around that. I absolutely support and appreciate the ability to make sure that people can vote as comfortably as possible, but I think the clause in this legislation setting a default of 10 days rather than 12 is a step in the right direction. It has been very difficult for many of us to do the quick turnaround from the close of nominations and the ballot draw on the Friday to opening up voting on Monday morning. Giving us all a couple of days extra will make the electoral process better, so that is good.

One thing I would just make a comment on – it is not directly related to the legislation – but where it is possible the electoral commission should be trying to find the best locations for early voting and polling booths more generally. I know they do this, but the practice that has been around for a number of years of utilising a vacant shop, whether that is in a country town or in a suburb somewhere, is not ideal, particularly when it is in the middle of a shopping strip. It causes upset to neighbouring shops sometimes because you have got booth workers and you have got voters coming and going. I think as a principle if the electoral commission can find locations like civic centres – whether it is a hall, whether it is a senior centre or something like that – not right in the CBD of a town, not in the main shopping strip where booth workers are harassing people who are just going about their business shopping, because they do not know as someone walks up if they are going in to vote or they are just going past to get some milk. I think ideally we should see the commission try and find those sorts of civic centres – as I said, halls or community centres or senior citizen centres – where they are available. That would make it much easier to run early voting.

The member for Brighton has outlined some of our concerns. We are pleased, again, to see the public service secondment aspects of this bill taken out, because we had some concerns about those. He has raised our concern about the commissioner’s delegations. I think the commissioner really has one big job and should be able to do that, particularly in relation to the declaration of polls and the like. It is important that the commissioner does that, and that should not be delegated.

On the issue of print house requirements, I can probably understand why there is a desire to remove the publishing of print house requirements on printed material. But as the member for Brighton has pointed out, it is a bit of a failsafe, a bit of a backup for us, because whilst all election material needs to be authorised, sometimes it is difficult for the commission or those investigating potential breaches to actually find the person who has authorised material, and having a secondary requirement for the printer’s details to be included just gives us another way to go and find someone who may have authorised particular material. I think that is important.

The member for Brighton touched on the issue of preference distributions, and we are seeking to move an amendment to ensure that they are done for all electorates. I know that it is the case that they are not always done, and I think it is important that the community understands the full preference allocations. It actually happened in my by-election in 2015. Because I was elected after the second or third candidate had been eliminated, they stopped and did not publish a full preference distribution. As the member for Brighton indicated, the electoral commission does not always get it right as to who the two-candidate preferred count should be taken with, and that was the case in point too. There was no Labor candidate, so the commission decided it would be between the Nationals and the Greens, but in fact the final two candidates were pretty much always going to be from the Nationals and the Liberal Party in that situation, and that was the case. But a full preference count was not published. I managed to actually get it from the local manager at the time, but I think an amendment that would ensure that a full two-party preferred preference distribution is undertaken and published is an important thing for understanding the state of every single electorate across the state.

We have seen the issues that occurred in 2022, and I think there will be other members who may go into some more detail about some of the concerns that occurred with the last election. I know in my own electorate and the neighbouring electorate of Bass there were issues with the availability of ballot papers in a number of booths late in the afternoon, and that is a significant concern. I know there are backup measures that a returning officer can deal with, but there were certainly some issues there where there were not enough ballot papers produced for certain booths and people had to be turned away. That is a serious concern as well.

There are other aspects of this legislation making some changes, including changes to the registration of political parties, taking it from 120 days prior to the election to 180 days. That again reduces some of the pressure on the electoral commission. Again I say that I do not have any issue with that. If you are serious about trying to set up a political party, you should be doing that well in advance of an election. In general, with the amendments that the government has now put forward to the original bill, we do not oppose this in principle. We will be moving some amendments in the other place, and I look forward to this improving things for the election this year.

 Nathan LAMBERT (Preston) (15:35): I also rise to make a contribution on the Electoral Amendment Bill 2025. I know many bills arrive in this place as a result of ministerial or departmental deliberations, and it is always a pleasure for those of us who are on parliamentary committees to see a bill that has arisen at least in part from the work of the Electoral Matters Committee (EMC). We have heard already from the member for Tarneit, who chairs that committee, and we will be hearing I believe from the member for Lowan, who also with me is on that committee. We are very pleased to see some of the work of our inquiry implemented.

In acknowledging the work of the committee I should also of course acknowledge the work of the Victorian Electoral Commission and credit Sven Bluemmel and his team. I think the committee and the commission have a good working relationship – not a relationship of complete agreement on all matters but a good relationship. I suspect if the member for Lowan is speaking later on this bill she may raise, as the Leader of the Nationals has done, some serious matters regarding a shortage of ballot papers, particularly as occurred around Stawell. Whether that is to be fixed with operational changes or further legislation is perhaps something she might touch on. I just want to acknowledge that that is an important issue for all of us to address. I also want to recognise, in starting, the electoral review expert panel of Elizabeth Williams, David Feeney and Helen Kroger, who contributed significantly to this bill. Particularly, if I can, I will just recognise the work of David Feeney, who is a local to our part of the world, used to represent Preston and Reservoir in the federal Parliament and still makes a significant contribution locally as well as through his appearances on the Socially Democratic podcast.

There are a lot of reforms – almost 100 – in this bill, but I thought I would just take a moment to touch on some of the other large issues in this area that are not in the bill in front of us but which are important considerations for us when we consider the Electoral Act 2002. The first one I want to touch on is group voting tickets. As you will be aware, the EMC recommended in favour of abolishing group voting tickets. I would just like to put on record a quote from Antony Green, which I think is important for people to keep in mind. Antony Green said:

One of the basic factual errors thrown around in the debate about changing the Senate’s voting system is that the group ticket voting system was designed by the major parties so that they could control preferences.

This view is wrong. The system was proposed by the then Australian Electoral Office …

The overwhelming justification for group ticket voting was the scandalous level of informal voting that existed prior to its introduction in 1984.

I feel it is always important to make this point – I have made it before – that group voting tickets have existed in this country since 1984, and they were introduced neutrally, not in a partisan way, to solve a very real problem of informal voting. They have existed in this state since 2003.

If I can be frank – it is a pity that the Greens have not joined us for today’s debate – there was a serious debate in this country about group voting tickets that went at least back to the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters hearings on the 2013 federal election. The Greens in this place did not ever complain about group voting tickets until after the 2018 state election – five years after the debate had started, decades after group voting tickets had first been introduced – and the reason they began to complain about them is because for the first time it was perceived that group voting tickets were hurting the Greens political party, and at the point where it was politically expedient for them to complain about it they did so. I make that point just because I think a lot of us find it a little frustrating when we watch some of these very tabloid social media videos that they produce on this issue without recognising the fact that their contribution to this particular debate has only arrived at the point where it was politically beneficial for them to make that contribution.

Another major topic of our inquiries I do want to touch on is the safety of voters, campaigners and candidates at polling booths and the importance of people being able to vote in a way that is comfortable for them and is not – unfortunately, as we saw sometimes in the 2022 election – difficult, with them being shouted at and witnessing very aggressive behaviour. I think it is an important issue for all of us to think about. Certainly in our part of the world that unfortunate behaviour that we saw in some booths took two forms, really. Predominantly at the far-right end of the spectrum, as I observed it, there was some very aggressive behaviour, which we all would agree was simply wrong. Unfortunately, certainly in our part of the world, it involved the police being called on a number of occasions to deal with the behaviour of those people. I think all of us recognise that that sort of very intimidating, aggressive behaviour is wrong in any context. It is certainly wrong in an election. I think there is also broad agreement amongst those who looked at this issue that there is more to do on enforcement and in particular on an escalation pathway for the VEC to deal with the kinds of people that do that kind of thing.

But there is a second challenge for all of us, I think, and that is behaviour that is more commonly associated with the Victorian Socialists, and that is the behaviour of standing 100 metres or so away from a polling booth and then walking beside a voter and delivering an intense monologue at them across their entire journey in to the polling booth so that no-one else can get a word in edgewise. In fact if you want to make any point to the voter, you are forced to raise your voice above their monologue, at which point they immediately raise their voice in a way that I think they are trained to do and you end up in a shouting match with the poor voter caught in between. It is a difficult issue. I am sure all of us have engaged voters passionately before, but the issue here was that it was done in a ruthless and systematic way to every voter coming into booths. The issue for all of us is that it was clear that the Victorian Socialists had made a calculation that because they start with a low voting base even if they made 20 per cent, 30 per cent, 40 per cent of voters coming in feel uncomfortable, if they won over 5 per cent, they would be ahead in their own electoral calculation. I raise this particular issue because I think it is one we might come back to after the 2026 election.

There may be other members in this place who do not have quite the large Victorian Socialists operation that we do in Preston and Reservoir, but we –

Michael O’Brien interjected.

Nathan LAMBERT: Not in Malvern? I can fill the member for Malvern in because they are a party that see themselves as being on the rise. There is certainly a theory in those circles that the socialists will replace the Greens as the major party to Labor’s left. Without going into detail, they are ideologically quite similar to the Greens really. They represent the interests of humanities graduates and the academic left, but they do not have the environmental background that has been a strength for the Greens and that has broadened the Greens, I think we would all recognise, for a long period of time. But if you talk to some of the Victorian Socialists, they will say to you that former strength of the Greens is no longer a strength. They will say to you that when young people hear talk about climate change, it is in the same way that we hear about acid rain or about the ozone layer. They simply see it as an issue that has now become mainstream, largely solved politically, and no longer has anti-establishment credibility. I am just putting this out to members.

It is the belief of the Victorian Socialists certainly that at the next election they have a chance, as they have done in some of our local elections in our part of the world, to move past the Greens on primary votes and become that party to Labor’s left. I put that on the record because I would imagine – I do not speak at all for them, of course – the chances that they replicate the tactics that we saw in the 2022 election in 2026 are I think quite high. They will see this as an existential chance for them to surge ahead of the Greens and to maintain that momentum they have seen in some recent local elections, so I think that will be an important electoral matter. It is a difficult one for us because realistically it is very, very hard to draw a bright line between those things that they are doing and things that we would all think were fair and reasonable in political campaigning. It is a topic I am sure EMC will return to and this chamber will return to.

If I can come back, in conclusion, to the bill in front of us, despite it not tackling those two topics and despite not tackling section 61 and the distribution of counts which the Leader of the Nationals and the member for Brighton alluded to, I will, if I can, pick up on that, just to express some sympathy. As someone who has worked with electoral data, it would be great to have more data from the VEC sometimes. I would gently suggest to the member for Brighton that his amendment does not quite solve the problem, particularly because it does not solve the very problem he raised about who the indicative count is against. But I will recognise that there is some value in thinking further about that. I may leave his wild conspiracies about a small number of Victorian public service staff who joined the VEC to another day.

But I will conclude on a more positive note if I can by just saying this is nonetheless a very important bill in terms of making a lot of technical changes that the member for Tarneit touched on in relation to timelines, particularly in relation to ways that people can cheat donations through loans and things like that, in relation to not having internal party rules subject to court actions and in relation to postal votes. Obviously the nature of the post has changed, and it is tidied up in this bill. Obviously there have been other technological changes that have resulted in changes to authorisation. I think all of that good work out of the work that we have seen through the EMC inquiries is great to see here in this bill, and I commend it very strongly to the house.

 Michael O’BRIEN (Malvern) (15:45): I am pleased to rise to speak on the Electoral Amendment Bill 2025. Voting is a very fundamental part of life in a democracy, and this bill deals with some aspects of our voting processes. But of course we do not just vote in elections at state level every four years or at federal elections every three years, there are all sorts of votes, and I note that even the AFL Hall of Fame is done by voting. I will take this opportunity to pay tribute to one of the inductees in the 2020 AFL Hall of Fame, Dennis Cometti, who passed away today. I just take this opportunity to place on record that Dennis Cometti has been an absolute doyen of the sport of AFL and other sports, but particularly AFL, with one of the most silky-smooth voices you could ever hope to hear calling the game, a brilliant knowledge of the game and a turn of phrase that puts all of us to shame. He has been a great contributor to those who love AFL, and I want to place on record my appreciation of his great contribution over the years and my sadness at his passing today.

On to other matters perhaps more germane to the bill. The government has moved a number of amendments to this bill to remove references to nominated entities when it comes to funding processes. The government has done this I think on the basis that there is currently a matter before the High Court of Australia. My understanding is that the matter of Hopper & Anor v State of Victoria has been heard by the court. The court has now reserved its judgement. We expect to get an indication, hopefully, from their honours in the near future, because here we are in March, the election is in November and it would be terrific to know which parts of our electoral funding laws are and are not unconstitutional. That would be really helpful for everyone. Of course the High Court marches to the beat of its own drum. I am sure it does not particularly worry about things like state elections, but given the timing of this case, I am sure their honours are aware of the importance of their decision, and all I would ask is that we get a clear decision and a quick decision if possible.

The government has removed from this bill matters relating to registered entities and the way in which they can fund existing political parties. When it comes to fundraising, this is something which is quite an important topic because we have seen from the Wood Commission of Inquiry into the CFMEU up in Queensland reports of corruption in Victorian Big Build sites, and we have seen the reports of the involvement of the CFMEU in that corruption. That, I think, has been acknowledged by the Premier. The Premier may dispute whether $15 billion has been ripped from the pockets of Victorians and funnelled to their mates in the CFMEU and outlaw motorcycle gangs and drug dealers, so we can argue the toss over how much has been stolen. But there is no doubt that money has been stolen from the pockets of hardworking Victorian taxpayers and funnelled to criminals. It is why it is very interesting that the CFMEU has been such a big donor to the Victorian Labor Party. I refer to an article in the Australian Financial Review dated 1 February 2024, ‘CFMEU and construction unions top donations to Victoria ALP’. The article starts:

Unions contributed more than $5 million to Labor in the past financial year, with the CFMEU and its allied construction shops becoming the biggest donors to the Victorian branch in the months leading up to the 2022 state election …

It talks about money, not only from the CFMEU, but also we have seen other unions, such as the Electrical Trades Union and the plumbers union, which the article notes are ‘both allied to the CFMEU in Victoria’ and ‘contributed $102,470 and $65,593 respectively in 2022–23’. So the union that has been named and shamed in relation to corruption on Big Build worksites has also been one of the biggest financial supporters of the Victorian Labor government. It really raises the question: why is the Premier so keen to avoid any work going into finding out how much money was stolen, who stole it, what laws have been broken and how we get the money back? That is a very important question which the Premier is not keen to answer.

Belinda Wilson: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, on relevance, this is a wideranging debate, but let us bring it back to what we are discussing.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Kim O’Keeffe): The member was being relevant to elections.

Michael O’BRIEN: The government’s house amendments relating to donation laws are exactly relevant to what I am saying, so I thank you for your ruling, Acting Speaker. This also betrays how sensitive the government is about this. We know that $15 billion, at least, has been ripped off from Victorian taxpayers, and we know the Victorian Labor Party has benefited from political donations by those same corrupt organisations which did the ripping off. Some might say it looks like protection money. Some might say it is protection money when a bunch of crooks rip money off from taxpayers and the government of the day turns a blind eye to it.

Juliana Addison interjected.

Michael O’BRIEN: I have nothing to be careful about, member for Wendouree. There is nothing I would say in here that I would not say 30 steps out to the side there either. This is a corrupt government. I am happy to say that in here; I am happy to say it out there. When you get protection money from the CFMEU in the form of political donations and you then turn a blind eye to their corruption, which is ripping off hardworking Victorian families, that is a dodgy situation. The fact is that this Premier not once but twice this week has voted to refuse to allow our legislation to strengthen the powers of the IBAC to give them follow-the-money powers, to have a tough cop on the beat, to get back the money, to stop the law breaking and to make sure we have the rule of law back on Victorian construction sites. I tell you this is a government that is fundamentally compromised when it comes to political donations. This is a government that has been bought and paid for by the CFMEU.

James Newbury interjected.

Michael O’BRIEN: That is a very good point. Thank you for reminding me of that, member for Brighton. The same Mick Gatto, the notorious underworld figure, who I am sure would not object to being called that, says publicly what a big fan he is of the Premier. I mean, with –

James Newbury interjected.

Michael O’BRIEN: Well, why wouldn’t he? How much money are his related businesses, this M ‍Group – how much money is Mick Gatto and his businesses making out of the Big Build and are any of those businesses donating to the Victorian Labor Party? They are questions that need to be asked. Somebody has been asking them, member for Brighton. Nick McKenzie, for one, wrote a story on 17 February this year in the Age, ‘Big Build’s dirty money: how gangland, bikie-linked firms funded Labor’.

James Newbury interjected.

Michael O’BRIEN: You have got to be quiet now, member for Brighton. He reported:

Victorian Labor collected thousands of dollars in donations from firms that now face police action over suspected corrupt payments or that placed gangland, bikie or CFMEU identities on taxpayer-funded projects.

The donors include a traffic management firm on Labor’s signature $100 billion Big Build program whose owner has been charged by Victoria Police’s anti-corruption and gangland building industry taskforce; another Big Build subcontractor facing a federal police probe for allegedly bribing a corrupt CFMEU boss; and the owners of two Big Build firms represented by gangland figure Mick Gatto.

These are the people who are funding the Allan Labor government. When Victorians go to the polls later this –

Chris Couzens: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, the member needs to go back to the bill. This has got nothing to do with the bill.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Kim O’Keeffe): He was being relevant.

Michael O’BRIEN: This has everything to do with the bill, because the government’s amendments are relating to the funding of registered organisations, and where does the Labor Party get its money? From its registered organisation Labor Holdings. And who donates to Labor Holdings is exactly what I am talking about: corrupt unions and corrupt gangland figures – people who have ripped off Victorian taxpayers on the Big Build and who pay the Labor Party donations as protection money. That is exactly how this government is funded. It is why this government is compromised. It is morally compromised, financially compromised and politically compromised.

So when Victorians see the host of ads – no doubt the union movement will come to the Labor Party’s aid later this year – the attack ads from the labour movement against the Liberals, Victorians need to remember who has been funding this: crooks, bikie gangs, drug peddlers and other sorts of people who should be in jail instead of running around running amok on Victorian Big Build worksites.

 John LISTER (Werribee) (15:54): I rise to speak on the substance of the Electoral Amendment Bill 2025 that is before the house. In preparing my notes on this I did do a little bit of research into some of the history of the different aspects of our election system that we are dealing with in this bill, particularly research from Monash University and the Victorian Electoral Commission (VEC) by Laing, Miragliotta and Thornton-Smith which makes some very interesting observations about the idea of convenience voting and some of the protections that we need to have in place to make sure that this is done with integrity. I will return to that soon. I think it is particularly important, being one of the few members, in fact the only member in this house, to have recently been to an election, to not only reflect on some of the reports that have informed this legislation but also thank my neighbour the member for Tarneit and the work of the committee that he chairs for some of the observations from the byelections that we saw in February last year and some of the changes that are foreshadowed in this bill to make sure that our operations of elections are done fairly and that they are done with a view to making sure that as many people who are eligible to vote can access their democratic right, while also ensuring that there is integrity in the process.

This bill will make sure that our Electoral Act 2002 is fit for purpose. There are a few particular things, that some of my colleagues have already spoken about, around having requirements for supplementary elections and re-elections – and I note the member for Narracan is here. This is a particularly important theme, the supplementary election and how that works, and it is a particularly tricky area of elections too. It is about modernising and simplifying authorisation requirements for electoral materials, particularly in this age of more and more artificial intelligence being used, particularly by some interesting small news sites and Facebook interest groups; making sure that we have very clear, modern authorisation requirements, acknowledging the changing way that political communication is happening in Victoria; tightening restrictions on party names and logos that can be registered, which is particularly interesting; and providing more flexible powers for the commission to respond to emergencies, timing and requirements for electoral processes – which I will go into a little bit, after being through the fire of a byelection that was quite a tight turnaround and some of the pressures that puts not only on the commission but also on people exercising their right to run in that election and try and convince their community to vote for them. I will also be looking at some of the other technical amendments in the bill.

One particularly important part of elections that has emerged in Victoria is postal voting. It is a particularly important mechanism in Victoria to make sure that as many people can access our elections as possible, regardless of circumstances that may restrict their ability to attend a voting centre on the day or beforehand. We had postal voting here in Victoria as early as 1895. We have always had concerns, and particularly this Labor Party over the years has had concerns, around the security of that and making sure that there is limited or no influence over that person casting that ballot and ensuring the security of it. But it is particularly important, too, to make sure that we have postal votes arriving in people’s postboxes in a timely way so that they can cast that vote and have it returned in time for it to be counted at a reasonable time past election day. We are making some changes to the timing that the VEC may deliver or post declaration and ballot packs to postal voters, making it so that they can do it as soon as practicable and may do so before those early and mobile voting processes commence, which is usually in that week or so after the nominations have closed.

It is particularly important when we are looking at our elections, and particularly at some of the things that we saw in the 2022 election around party names and logos. We will tighten restrictions on party names and logo registrations. We will extend the prohibition on names that are overly similar to registered party names to take into account different abbreviations and acronyms for those parties.

Business interrupted under sessional orders.