In New South Wales, the debate about optional preferencing is typically a lot more sedate. Optional preferencing has obvious formality benefits in NSW especially at state elections (though this can flow on to worse informal voting rates at federal). Perhaps partly because OPV is in the NSW Constitution, and perhaps because any government wanting to do so would have a tough time getting its way in the upper house, there doesn't seem to be any serious push to get rid of it. It also seems that for whatever reason, non-major-party candidates (who might be thought to be disadvantaged most by OPV since they most often rely on winning from behind) actually do well in NSW state elections, much better than in Victoria.
However, in Queensland, where there's no upper house and the election winners can write the rules for the next election, the debate is an on and off culture war item between the major parties. In Queensland, OPV first came in from the 1992 election after it was recommended by the post-Fitzgerald Electoral and Administrative Review Committee, although the arguments considered had very little to do with corruption. It was repealed for the 2017 election in unusual circumstances. Katter's Australian Party and the LNP had supported an electoral amendment bill to increase the number of seats from 89 to 93. The minority Palaszczuk government moved an amendment to add the return of compulsory preferencing, which then passed and the whole package was then passed over the LNP's vehement objections.
