Inquiry into the Upper House Electoral System

VTHC Submission

For most of the state’s history, Victoria’s Legislative Council was an undemocratic, repressive institution dominated by powerful landowners and unelected elites. From the 1854 Eureka Stockade onwards, workers in union fought to democratise the Legislative Council and open it up to the voices of working people. Victorian unions commend the Victorian Parliament’s Electoral Matters Committee for convening this inquiry into enhancing the transparency of upper house elections. In responding to this Inquiry, VTHC proposed six recommendations each guided by the following democratic principles:

• One-vote-one-value,
• Ease and accessibility of voting,
• Diversity without deception,
• Access to members of the upper house,
• Counting every vote, and
• Transparency.

In their discussion paper, the Electoral Matters Committee offered six example structures that could be implemented to improve the integrity of elections for the Legislative Council. Of these options, Victorian unions endorsed both the four-region model and the single-electorate model, with the caveat that a single-electorate model would benefit from having measures that mitigate party fragmentation in the chamber.

Victorian unions also made recommendations aimed at addressing issues in the current system that can cause workers’ votes to be wasted through ballot exhaustion or preference harvesting. Workers have the right to know how their votes will impact the final allocation of seats in the upper house. The use of Group Voting Tickets infringes on this right.

The full list of recommendations provided by VTHC in this submission is available below:

Recommendation 1: That electoral reform to the Victorian Upper House is undertaken with due consideration to the principles of one-vote-one value, ease and accessibility, diversity without deception, access to members of the Upper House, count every vote, and transparency.

Recommendation 2: That if the Victorian Upper House continues to be divided into regions, that those regions are reduced in number and each increased in their number of representatives. Alternatively, if the Victorian Upper House chooses to draw its representation from a single electorate, then the parliament must ensure that measures are put in place to ensure that:

• Voters have equitable access to Upper House representatives;
• Measures are in place to prevent political parties gaming the system by falsely representing themselves;
• Ballot papers are designed to reduce the risk of voter confusion, and
• New mechanisms are established so that voters maintain a geographic connection to Upper House representatives.

Recommendation 3: That elections for the Victorian Upper House occur under a Four Region Model in which four regions each elect ten members to the Legislative Council, for a total of forty representatives. One of the four regions should cover regional Victoria, while the remaining three should cover voters in metropolitan areas.

Recommendation 4: That in the event of a single-electorate system being introduced, the Victorian Government consider measures to mitigate potential ramifications of party fragmentation in the chamber.

Recommendation 5: That a Robson Rotation system for ballot papers is not introduced to prevent unnecessary pressure on voting administration.

Recommendation 6: That Group Voting Tickets are abolished for Upper House elections in Victoria so as to improve transparency and public confidence in democratic outcomes.