Three years after Senate electoral reform brought the merry-go-round to a halt at federal level, the game of micro-party preference manipulation is in ruder health than ever in Victoria.
Together with Western Australia, Victoria is one of two jurisdictions where parties still get to corral the overwhelming majority of their upper house votes in their chosen direction as preferences, thanks to the magic of group voting tickets — a system that has progressively fallen by the wayside in New South Wales, South Australia and federally.
Next Saturday’s state election has brought forth a record 380 candidates for the eight Legislative Council regions, with ever more micro-party chancers hoping to strike it lucky.
The discipline with which the micro-parties are directing preferences to each other has also reached new heights, the consequences of which soon become apparent when plausible party vote totals are entered into Antony Green’s election calculators.
Whatever might be said of the ethics of his endeavours, “preference whisperer” Glenn Druery has clearly worked hard for the $5000 he reportedly charges those wishing to be part of the network (with the further promise of a $50,000 “success fee”).
While the exact identity of the unknowns who will shortly be thrust into the spotlight is impossible to guess, it is clear the incoming government will face an upper house configuration at least as complex as that Daniel Andrews has dealt with for the past four years, in which Labor and the Greens between them have commanded only 19 votes out of 40.
This has left the government needing the support of a further two out of five crossbenchers to win contested votes, of whom only Fiona Patten of the Reason Party (formerly the Sex Party) is not identifiably right-of-centre.
One issue the government has made no attempt to run by the Legislative Council is reform to the very system that brought this state of affairs to pass.
Indeed, Labor has been fairly consistent in its reticence to let go of group voting tickets, notwithstanding the complications that can result for its legislative agenda when in government.
The Turnbull government’s reforms were passed in the teeth of Labor opposition, and the Labor government in Western Australia has proved no more active on the electoral reform front than its Victorian counterpart, despite the failure of last year’s landslide win to deliver a left majority in the state’s upper house (albeit that the main culprit in that case was over-representation of rural areas).
Labor claims vindication for its position on Senate reform by pointing to One Nation’s successes in 2016, but the fact that the same attitude prevails in Victoria, where One Nation doesn’t feature, suggests other motivations.
The group voting tickets for the coming election, which were published on Monday, bear evidence of Labor efforts to reach accommodations with the Glenn Druery network, including by placing candidates of Shooters, Fishers and Farmers and the Liberal Democrats ahead of the Greens.
Whether such manoeuvres ultimately deliver benefits to outweigh the costs remains to be established.
However, it’s tempting to think party apparatchiks who cut their teeth on the skulduggery of student politics simply enjoy the game of preference wheeling-and-dealing a little too much for their own good, and are prone to over-estimate their talent for working the system to their own advantage.
It’s probably worth mentioning here, that anyone who’d rather not participate in the preference whispering game, can happily vote below the line for the upper house and be sure of making a formal vote, by numbering their preferences from 1-5. (You can preference more, but 5 is the minimum. )
Hard to escape the conclusion that Victorian Labor hate the Greens so much that they’re prepared to assist in the election of the Rooters, Shooters and anyone else rather than have the dreaded Greens achieve any more power. It seems that advancing a progressive legislative agenda is less important to the Victorian ALP than carrying on the tedious and at times juvenile war against the Greens.
And, Paddy makes a sound point about below the line voting. I’m assembling my “ticket”, and in light of the above, not sure where to put Labor!
I see you didn’t include the ‘ tedious and at times juvenile war’ the Greens are perpetrating against the Labor Party??
Why don’t they try winning seats off the LNP for a change???
They did- in Prahran.
A whole one seat????? WOW!!!!!
That exact same post could have been made about the Victorian Greens hating Labor so much that they also play games with preferences, seem to focus exclusively on beating Labor and causing problems for Labor, and see taking inner city seats off Labor as more important than working together to advance a progressive legislative agenda.
At least Labor spends most of its time going after the Libs. The Vic Greens might as well have been in hibernation in between elections, and spend all their time in elections causing problems for Labor.
The Greens and ALP play tit-for-tat in putting each other in the low 20s and the Libs in the low 40s.
Meanwhile the curiously named Labour DLP party dislikes the Greens so much they put them at the end after the ALP and the Socialists, and even put individual Greens in reverse order. But not quite at the end – they reserve the very last spot for Fiona Patten. I hope she feels proud.
The DLP is not the ALP, and if you think they are curiously named you don’t know your Australian political history- they used to be a force, a force that helped keep the ALP out of office by hiving off erstwhile Labor voters and directing preferences to Menzies.
They’re just another right wing microparty these days, restored to a tiny amount of relevance thanks to preference harvesting deals.
Is anyone going to ask Daniel Andrews and the Labor state secretary Samuel Rae to justify these dubious deals with the Druery crew? Try emailing admin@vic.alp.org.au – more contact details of Labor officials are here: http://www.viclabor.com.au/about/state-party/
I think Federal Labor in 2016 was simply suspicious that the whole thing, combined with the double dissolution, was a plot to try and screw Labour somehow. As was pointed out repeatedly at the time, the Labor representatives on the parliamentary committee involved were as much in favour of eliminating group ticket above the line voting as anyone else so the opposition to it was a political party room decision. Couldn’t really blame them for being concerned that the government’s plan was skulduggery, everything else they did was. Heck, maybe even the Coalition believed that it would lead to a higher percentage of exhausts (especially amongst younger, more Labor-voting people) that favoured them.
While the State ALP had to be worried about showing hostility to the cross-bench which would make it harder to pass things.
For those interested in a scholarly analysis of Labor/Green relations, take a look at Shaun Crowe’s “Whitlam’s Children”. I found the most valuable feature to be the more than forty interviews with Labor and Green MPs/activists. What struck me was the higher level of hostility from Labor to Greens than vice versa. That is not to say that there weren’t some aggro Greens (hello ex-Senator Rhiannon), but they essentially saw themselves as on the same progressive side of the political fence, whatever problems have arisen since the Greens started winning seats.
What surprised me was the hostility of a solid cohort of Labor people who do not seem to regard the Greens as part of the broad non-conservative side of politics, mostly (but not exclusively) due to Greens’ failure to worship at the altar of economic growth. Some almost gave the impression that they have more in common with the Liberals than with the Greens. Others were at the opposite end, seeing considerable common ground. Clearly, this is an area of considerable difference within the ALP.
On the issue of GVTs in Victoria, it is worth recording that Daniel Andrews apparently passed up an opportunity to effect some reform prior to the last election (ABC news online 9 December 2014). Then premier Napthine was interested in a threshold primary vote as a pre-requisite for election to the upper house; Andrews expressed initial interest, but then declined further discussion. As an alternative to the present fiasco, it at least merited consideration.
Given the impressive electoral reform records of previous Labor premiers Cain and Bracks, Andrews’ apparent indifference is depressing. If he believes that this approach is helpful for Labor, such belief is obviously not based on the desirability of passing government legislation.
In my personal experience the Greens activists are more hostile and open to stuff like yelling at you iin the street about refugees or Adani or whatnot while you’re trying to get people to sign a petition on wages etc, I’ve never seen Labor people do that while the Greens are doing petitions.
Generally a lot of Labor is very sympathetic to Greens positions even if they think they are not practical or pragmatic or affordable in the moment, while a lot of Greens regard Labor as sell-outs, right-wing, no different to the Libs etc. It no doubt depends which branches you talk to. I’ve had a lot to do with inner city Melbourne branches who have the most clashes with the Greens but also the most left wing parts of Labor – as such it’s really not a shock that our people and voters are sympathetic to the Greens and feel unfairly put upon by Greens, while Labor people in say Western Sydney or suburban Queensland might well be less sympathetic to the Greens and get attacked less by the Greens. Labor is a very broad church (much moreso than the Liberals).