Tim READ (Brunswick) (10:41): I also wish to briefly mention the Electoral Matters Committee report into Victoria’s upper house electoral system, specifically recommendation 1, again, which reiterates an earlier call by the committee on the government to introduce legislation eliminating group voting tickets as soon as possible. The government’s response was due this week, but we have yet to see it. The Guardian reports that the Premier may be reluctant to scrap them, fearing that this could benefit One Nation. If true, that concern is based on a misconception. I draw members’ attention to a recent article by psephologist Dr Kevin Bonham, who notes that the myth of group voting tickets blocking One Nation goes back to the Howard era, when major and minor parties alike put One Nation last. But that was then and this is now. Today in Victoria there are enough right-leaning micro-parties willing to direct preferences One Nation’s way. We saw it at the last election in 2022, when One Nation’s Rikkie-Lee Tyrrell won in Northern Victoria with just 3.7 per cent of the vote, overtaking four parties with higher primary votes, including Labor. Group ticket preferences from Druery-aligned parties elected her. The vast majority of parties in Glenn Druery’s network preference One Nation ahead of Labor, the Liberals and the Greens. But, as Bonham notes, the right question is not: will scrapping group voting tickets will help One Nation? The right questions are: will it give voters actual control over their own preferences, just like we have when we vote in a federal election; will it keep MPs accountable to voters rather than to Mr Glenn Druery; and will it stop his squalid seat-buying scandals from bringing Victorian democracy into disrepute? And the answer to all of those questions is the same: scrap group ticket voting. To quote a Labor legend, ‘It’s time.’ For Gough’s sake, no more kicking the can down the road – abolish group ticket voting now.