Wednesday, 12 August 2026

 Chris CREWTHER (Mornington) (11:04): I rise again on the Electoral Matters Committee’s report into Victoria’s upper house electoral system, this time with something important having changed. As the committee’s deputy chair, I acknowledge the work of the chair and former chair, members and former members, the secretariat and every witness and submitter. The report did not pretend that there was universal agreement about the future structure of the Legislative Council, but there was broad agreement on the urgent first step: group voting tickets had to go. Our committee strongly recommended this. When I spoke on this report on 12 May I said that group voting tickets had had their day. On 28 July the government finally introduced legislation to abolish them, and on 29 July, last sitting week, the Assembly passed that bill without opposition. Finally, last night, it was then passed through the Legislative Council.

I welcome this reform. I also ask: why did Victorians have to wait until the eve of an election? The committee reported in December 2025. Recommendation 1 said that the government should act as soon as possible so voters, parties and the Victorian Electoral Commission would be ready for November. Electoral rules should be made on principle, not according to polling or calculations about which party might benefit. The committee squarely acknowledged the trade-off – that without a structural change, abolishing tickets may make it harder for small parties to be elected – but it also found that delay would further erode public trust. Minor parties will not be banned or silenced; they will simply have to persuade voters to give them preferences, just as every serious democratic movement should. The principle is simple: voters should direct their own preferences. Under these changes Victorians will be instructed to number at least five groups above the line, with savings provisions protecting ballots that express fewer preferences. A voter will choose where their vote travels; a party operative or paid preference broker will not.

The case for change is overwhelming. In an analysis published recently by Antony Green, he showed how group voting tickets engineered victories that ordinary voter preferences would otherwise have been unlikely to produce. In the Eastern Metropolitan Region in 2018 Transport Matters won from just 0.62 per cent, defeating a Greens candidate who began on 9 per cent. In Southern Metropolitan Region Sustainable Australia won from less than 1 per cent while the second Liberal candidate began on 12.3 per cent. That is not proportional representation; it is basically preference wizardry.

Then there is Glenn Druery, the so-called preference whisperer. In 2022 the ABC reported a video in which he described charging minor parties $55,000 to optimise their preferences. The committee found that paid preference coordination combined with group voting tickets had undermined public trust. Mr Druery has now warned that abolition may help One Nation. That is beside the point. We did not design democracy to manufacture our preferred winner; we designed it so that voters choose the winner.

Nor can Labor pretend it stood outside this machinery. In that 2018 Eastern Metropolitan count almost 11,000 Labor surplus votes helped push Transport Matters ahead after Labor’s ticket placed it second. Under the separate lower house preference system at the 2025 Werribee by-election, Labor trailed the Liberals on first preferences but retained the seat after preference distribution, assisted by substantial support initially cast for the Greens, Victorian Socialists and Legalise Cannabis. Labor understands preference flows very well when they work in Labor’s favour.

The final absurdity was the law being mocked in real time. Avi Yemini was explicit that his now registered Free Palestine Party was intended to attract left-wing votes and redirect preferences to parties on the right, with One Nation in the frame. An attempted Muslim Votes Matter registration echoed the same tactic. This pointed out what has happened for years already. But whatever one’s politics, a ballot paper label should not be bait in a preference harvesting scheme.

It is good that the government have finally accepted the committee’s central recommendations, but these changes do not complete the committee’s report. The recommended weighted inclusive Gregory counting method and a post-election process to build agreement on the Council’s structure remain unfinished business. Victoria was the last jurisdiction clinging to group voting tickets, so it is great that this reform has now passed both houses, and it is great that the Victorian Electoral Commission now has the time it needs to implement this before the election in November. We must continue to restore the most basic democratic rule: your vote should go where you send it.