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.  

I Threw It All Away: The United Australia Party Self-Deregisters!

I keep an almost daily watch on the AEC's party registration page, but it's been a pretty boring vigil lately.  So imagine my surprise when a newly minted Twitter account alerted me today to the news that the United Australia Party had up and jumped into the billabong of voluntary deregistration for the second time.  As a result, the UAP is not now a registered party for the purpose of contesting federal elections.

This has a precedent.  The original Palmer United Party was registered in the leadup to the 2013 election and voluntarily deregistered on  5 May 2017.  The United Australia Party was then registered in December 2018.  However, the PUP had flopped miserably in the 2016 Senate election (polling below 1% in every state in the absence of a big-spending campaign), unlike the 2022 election at which it polled much better and won a Senate seat.

The deregistration came as a surprise to the UAP's Senator Ralph Babet.  When contacted by the SMH's Lisa Visentin today, he initially didn't remember what it was about, then said he had forgotten because of the death of the Queen, and produced such lines as:

Party Registration Crackdown Tracker

SCOREBOARD

+7 New parties registered under new rules

-13 Existing parties deregistered following new rules (excludes deregistrations under old rules)

Final net change following new rules: -6

Parties registered for 2022 election: 38

One party is listed as an applicant for registration that cannot occur before the election as the party register is now frozen.

Three parties are formally listed for potential deregistration that cannot occur before the election for the same reason. 

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

(This article is continually updated - the original intro text is below)

The Electoral Legislation Amendment (Party Registration Integrity) Bill 2021 has passed the Senate without amendments and will shortly receive Royal Assent.  The Bill (i) increases the party membership number requirement for non-parliamentary parties to 1500 members (ii) requires that a person can only be counted as a member of one party (iii) prevents parties from registering names that use words already used by pre-existing parties without consent, with some exceptions.

My view on these changes was expressed in a previous article (The Trolls That Got There First).  I think the membership changes are in principle good and will not disadvantage minor parties with any real chance of ever winning seats - on the contrary they should reduce ballot paper clutter and encourage micro-parties to merge into units more likely to be competitive with bigger parties.  However I believe this should have been accompanied by reform to the current unfair and confusing treatment of non-party groups, which could become more common and cause increased confusion and unsightly ballot papers following this change. Also, the change disadvantages parties with their support based in the NT, ACT or Tasmania and there should probably be a one-jurisdiction registration option with the old 500 member limit.