A Labor-led inquiry is considering a huge overhaul of Victorian parliament’s upper house in an effort to stamp out the practice of “preference whispering” and bring it into line with other Australian jurisdictions.
The electoral matters committee, chaired by the Labor MP Luba Grigorovitch, released a discussion paper on Monday suggesting six possible options for reform, which include adopting the model used for the New South Wales upper house and that of the federal Senate.
It comes after the committee in July recommended the government ditch group voting tickets as part of its inquiry into the 2022 election.
Victoria’s legislative council is the only house of parliament in Australia still using such a voting system, in which voters choose just one party above the line on the ballot paper, with their preferences then allocated by the party.
Voters can also vote below the line, and list their own preferences, but must number at least five boxes for it to be valid. Only 9.4% of voters did so at the 2022 election.
All but one of the proposals in Monday’s discussion paper retain the current eight upper house regions, from which five MPs are elected.
One scraps regions altogether, with Victorians able to vote for all members.
The quota for election would go from the current 16.7% to 2.4%, which the discussion paper said would guarantee the representation of minor parties and maximise the diversity of views in the upper house.
The second proposal is similar to the models in place in NSW, South Australia and the Senate, in which 40 upper house MPs would be elected from the state as a whole, with only half on the ballot at each election. Under this proposal, the quota for election would be 4.8%.
Other models include changing to four 10-member regions; increasing the size of the legislative council to 49 members and electing seven members from seven regions; and retaining the current regions but adding “top up members” for parties that receive more than 4% of first preference votes.
Grigorovitch said “the last time there was significant reform done to the upper house was in 2003”.
“Victoria has changed a lot over the last 20 years, and we need to do the work to understand what possible changes could look like and what their impact might be,” Grigorovitch said.
The ABC electoral analyst Antony Green has previously told Guardian Australia that group voting tickets were an “abrogation of democracy” as they were regularly exploited by “preference whisperers” who are paid to help candidates win despite receiving a small proportion of first-preference votes.
The electoral matters committee deputy chair, Liberal MP Wayne Farnham, said group voting tickets can result in above-the-line votes for the upper house being distributed in ways that voters do not expect or want.
“I don’t think the public is really aware of how it works and because of this, their intent is not truly reflected in their vote,” Farnham said.
“The government should adopt the committee’s recommendation to abolish group voting tickets, which was made following both the 2018 and 2022 elections.”
The prominent “preference whisperer” Glenn Druery helped arranged preference deals in 2022 that saw the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers MP Jeff Bourman elected. Georgie Purcell also benefited from the deals, though her Animal Justice party directed its preferences to a bloc of progressive parties, in a “sting” revealed by Guardian Australia.
Responses to the discussion paper are due by 3 February, with the committee to report back to parliament by December 2025.
Parliament will have to agree with any recommended changes before they can be implemented and most proposed changes to the structure of the upper house would require a vote at a referendum.
