Group Ticket Voting In Victoria Is Finally Gone!

Today is Victoria's first day since the mid-2000s without Group Ticket Voting in state elections.  Legislation to abolish the system received Royal Assent yesterday.  It could still in theory be challenged in court but I doubt that would go too well for the challenger after the failed Bob Day federal challenge.

There's a saying that success has many fathers while failure is an orphan.  Meaning that when something good happens a lot of people suddenly want to claim the credit.  

Since group ticket voting was abolished in Victoria we've seen, for instance, GetUp! claiming partial credit for their petition which highlighted the recent attempt by Avi Yemini and others to register fake parties.  Yemini's defenders (including Topher Field in a ridiculous video where he abusively misunderstands comments to the Guardian by yours truly) have been out saying GetUp! and others who reacted were just "useful idiots" and their tactic with the fake parties was to generate exactly such outrage against group ticket voting to increase the chance of it being scrapped.  Well, to be useful idiots you firstly have to be useful so this suggests that GetUp! actually did do something after all.  I will say here that at least GetUp! only claimed partial credit while Yemini and co have had no compunction about claiming the lot.  But I'm not sure GetUp!'s petition with 22000+ "signatures" was ever even presented to anybody! I am nonetheless glad that they raised awareness of the issue.

Group Ticket Voting: Going, Going ... ? (Rolling Thread)

GTV repeal has passed Assembly unanimously and Legislative Council with a handful of votes against.

-----------------------

There is more encouraging news on the Group Ticket Voting front today with the Allan Carroll Government finally amid the chaos introducing a Bill to scrap group ticket voting in the Victorian Legislative Council, called the Electoral Amendment (Miscellaneous Matters) Bill 2026.  This rolling thread will follow what happens with this Bill during the week and what is in it.  (A note that I am tracking the registration of deceptively named parties for the Victorian election in this prior post.)

What is known so far is that the Bill will "remove group voting tickets from Legislative Council elections and prescribe a new method for voting above the line, requiring electors to number at least five groups in order of preference. The bill will also make other consequential and miscellaneous amendments to clarify and improve the operation of the Electoral Act and the electoral system in Victoria."

This establishes that the Bill will support a semi-optional Senate-style preferential system (possibly the simple "five above or five below" option), presumably with savings provisions for voters who number fewer above the line boxes.  This is the sensible choice as it encourages preference flows compared to a fully optional preferencing version as in states with lower quotas.

Victoria 2026: The Election Where All Sorts Of Things Can Happen!

Victoria Aggregate Labor 26.0 Coalition 27.3 Green 12.8 One Nation 23.7 others 10.3
(polls are probably underestimating "others" vote)
2PP estimate 52.0 to Coalition vs ALP, shadow-2PP ALP 50.1 vs One Nation

Currently Coalition would be likely to govern in minority with One Nation support, with One Nation seat tally around the mid-teens

One Nation and Labor seat numbers are highly dependent on Coalition preferencing decisions

Both major parties are still capable of majority government with a modest swing from current primaries

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It's been forever - largely because of the amount of work I had on in the first half of the year - since the last time I looked at Victorian state polling in the leadup to this year's election in any depth but finally a good time to do so has arrived.  What I see, at the moment, is a picture with a lot of possibilities.  Arguments can be made on current polling that the Allan Labor Government, while currently behind, is not far from surviving.  Arguments can also be made that it is not far from losing the election so badly that it may not even be the second party.  For now this is a really difficult election to model - much harder than South Australia - but perhaps by polling day things will get a lot clearer.  This one is a rather mathsy modelling article that has been rated 3/5 on the Wonk Factor scale.  

Is Group Ticket Voting Really On The Way Out In Victoria?

The last week has brought the encouraging news via both The Age and The Herald-Sun that Victorian Labor is preparing legislation to scrap Group Ticket Voting at the last possible chance before this year's election. According to the reports, the legislation will be brought in in the sitting week starting July 28, and would presumably pass both houses quickly in order to meet the VEC's August deadline.  

Let's hope this is finally it for all this nonsense!  I understand the smaller parties may be reluctant to vote for a new system under which their chances of winning any seats are greatly reduced for now thanks to the Bracks Government's entrenchment blunders, so I'll cut them slack so long as they refrain from making false claims in defence of their position.  But if any major party stands in the way or does nothing this time then there is no excuse for them not caring about democracy.  

Would Scrapping Group Ticket Voting In Victoria Help One Nation?

On this website I have frequently covered Victoria's ongoing failure to repeal the use of Group Ticket Voting in state Legislative Council elections.  Victoria is now the last state that still has this system, which has been scrapped everywhere else after being gamed by preference-harvesting.  In the current cycle the Electoral Matters committee in an outstanding report recommended the scrapping of Group Ticket Voting way back in July 2024, and the government has still not responded officially to that recommendation.  The clock is ticking in terms of time for the Victorian Electoral Commission to implement the changes required to move to a different system, and the Commission has said the decision must be made by August.  After recent issues involving service delivery by state electoral commissions I suggest the sooner the better.

Last week there was reporting by the Guardian this week that one Labor MP had said current Premier Jacinta Allan "had appeared reluctant to [scrap GTV] as it would benefit One Nation."  Separately I understand that the view that scrapping GTV would benefit One Nation is also espoused by some Labor lower house MPs.  Irrespective of who actually holds that view, this article is to explore this claim.  

The Guardian's article does not say why anyone holding this concern might hold it, and in the absence of any actual claimed mechanism it is not that easy to counter.  However there are at least three well known myths about how Group Ticket Voting is supposedly bad for One Nation in the modern age.  Here they are and here is why they are wrong.

Brad Battin's Booting Is A Poll History Outlier

(Note for Tasmanian audiences: I will have the usual article about the latest EMRS poll up sometime tonight or tomorrow)

The last fortnight has seen the leaders of three of Australia's current crop of feeble oppositions displaced while a fourth, Sussan Ley, is precarious (especially after another shocker Newspoll).  First to go was ACT Liberal leader Leanne Castley, who after an irregular (by Liberal Party standards) attempt to kick backbenchers Elizabeth Lee and Peter Cain out of the party room for crossing the floor over parliamentary sitting hours, resigned suddenly on November 10.  Victorian leader Brad Battin didn't recontest after a spill motion was passed 19-13 on Nov 18, and NSW Liberal leader Mark Speakman quit on Nov 21 facing the same fate.  In the ACT the leadership has passed to an old hand in third-term MLA Mark Parton, but both Victoria and NSW have gone for first-term female MPs, Jess Wilson and Kellie Sloane.  

The removal of Speakman requires no explanation following the NSW Liberals' run of poor polling and a terrible result in the Kiama by-election.  But the case of Battin is very unusual.  Since assuming the leadership in the final days of 2024, Brad Battin had led Jacinta Allan as better Premier in every single poll that asked such a question - eight in all by four different pollsters, with an average margin of 8.75%.  There have been occasional cases of Opposition Leaders being rolled who had sometimes led as better Premier (including Battin's predecessor John Pesutto who had led by a pyrrhic single point in his final Resolve sample) but an Opposition Leader who was leading solidly being removed is unprecedented, at least in the Newspoll era.