Micro party MPs with less than 3 per cent of the primary vote have once again been elected to Victoria's upper house, prompting renewed calls for the unique group voting system to be scrapped.
Newly elected Animal Justice Party MP Georgie Purcell has taken the mantle as the MP elected with the lowest primary vote, winning just 1.5 per cent in the Northern Victorian Region.
Victoria is the only jurisdiction that still uses group voting tickets for above-the-line voting.
It means by marking one box above the line on the upper-house ballot, the party decides how preferences are allocated.
These preferences are determined in secretive backroom preference swaps.
At this election just 9.4 per cent of Victorians voted below the line. This was an increase from the 2018 election, where 8.8 per cent of voters allocated their preferences and up on 2014 when it was just 6 per cent.
MPs who benefited from the group voting tickets system were Victoria's first One Nation MP Rikkie-Lee Tyrell, who won 3.7 per cent of the primary vote in Northern Victoria.
Jeff Bourman of the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party was returned with just 2.9 per cent to the Eastern Victoria Region, and David Limbrick of the Liberal Democrats was re-elected with 3.5 per cent of the primary in South-East Metro Region.
Government under pressure for inquiry
Experts say the Greens were likely to have won three extra upper-house seats this election if Victoria scrapped group voting tickets.
Greens leader Samantha Ratnam wrote to Premier Daniel Andrews this week demanding the government set up an inquiry into upper-house voting in order to stop the "manipulation made available by group voting tickets".
Ms Ratnam asked the government set up an expert panel within the next three months, to review the voting system and provide parliament with options for reform.
"We believe a panel with expertise in voting systems and democratic structures of governance is best placed to develop options for the parliament to consider,'' Ms Ratnam wrote.
"I am concerned that this important reform will not happen without the government showing leadership on the issue as a matter of urgency."
During the campaign, Mr Andrews was under pressure over failing to address the issue for the eight previous years in government, despite some Labor MPs backing reform.
A government spokeswoman said: "The review of the election will be undertaken by the Electoral Matters Committee of the Parliament in the usual way and we'll assess the recommendations on their merits."
The Western Australian Government held an inquiry after its last election after the Daylight Saving Party was elected with just 98 votes.
WA has since scrapped group voting tickets, with Premier Mark McGowan saying last year "the current system was outdated, broken and not operating in the best interests of democracy".
Some victories caused by preference decisions
The so-called preference whisperer Glenn Druery has made a career out of brokering deals for micro parties to get elected.
He says he helped Democratic Labour Party MP Adem Somyurek, Mr Bourman, Mr Limbrick and the Ms Purcell get elected.
"I did my best to keep the orchestra playing the right tune,'' he said.
There were 23 parties contesting the election, including a bloc of so-called "Freedom" parties, some with links to the far-right of politics. Mr Druery said he did not work with them.
"Ironically, it was the extreme right that is responsible for the Greens picking up seats because of the ill-informed and reckless way they preferenced. I would think that is at odds with their supporter base,'' he said.
ABC Election Analyst Antony Green said several MP's victories were entirely due to group voting ticket preference decisions.
"In Northern Victoria, Labor would have won a second seat without group voting tickets," Green said.
"Labor started the count with 12 per cent towards a second seat, nine times the vote of Animal Justice who were elected from only 1.5 per cent."
Green said Labor's preferences elected two Legalise Cannabis members whose seats could otherwise have been won by the Greens.
"With splits on preference direction amongst the minor players in 2022, it was major party preferences that played an important role in determining which minor parties were successful,'' he said.
"In Northern Victoria, the Coalition was responsible for electing One Nation's Rikkie-Lee Tyrell at the expense of the higher polling Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party candidate."
Victorian system 'broken' and 'needs to be fixed'
Despite benefiting from the system, Ms Purcell said the Animal Justice Party supported scrapping group voting tickets.
The party also wants Victoria's eight upper-house regions abolished and replaced with a state-wide upper house elected on with proportional representation, similar to NSW and WA.
"We have long held the position that the system in Victoria is outdated,'' Ms Purcell said.
During the election campaign, then-opposition leader Matthew Guy pledged to reform the system.
"This is third world kind of stuff where you can literally buy your way into the Victorian Parliament,'' Mr Guy said on November 17.
After the defeat, all Coalition policies are reviewed, but speaking to ABC Radio melbourne on Thursday, senior Liberal MP Matthew Bach backed voting reform.
"We have got to fix that, fix that system. We can't have our democratic processes and elections being gamed in that way,'' Mr Bach said.
"It is broken and it needs to be fixed."
Adrian Beaumont, an Honorary Associate at the University of Melbourne school of Mathematics and Statistics, argued that had Victoria used a system similar to the federal senate, the Greens would have won seven seats and the major parties each would have won an extra seat.
