Voting rort shows why our state’s tainted electoral laws must change

Victorians’ blood should be boiling over revelations our votes are being manipulated and effectively sold off to paying bidders.

It’s enough to make democratic-minded Victorians’ blood boil.

Our votes are being manipulated and effectively sold off to paying bidders, in order to get MPs with little popular support elected to state parliament.

Explosive leaked video shows self-styled preference whisperer Glenn Druery explain exactly how he structures grubby deals and sham parties to get nine MPs into the upper house.

This is an affront to our political system, while also likely to have netted Druery almost half a million dollars in success fees.

It shows why whichever party forms government following the November 26 election must change our state’s tainted electoral laws.

Preference whisperer Glenn Druery was filmed boasting about how he could manipulate the voting system. Picture: Renee Nowytarger

Labor, which Druery says benefited recently by securing a “workable” crossbench, can no longer kick the can down the road as it did this term.

Victoria’s upper house laws have been criticised for many years.

This is because, as respected poll watcher Antony Green says, the system massively distorts proportionality.

Take the last state election, and the Southern Metropolitan upper house region, as an example.

Sustainable Australia received 1.26 per cent of the vote and won a seat.

The Greens received 12.9 per cent of the vote and missed out.

Heston Russell and Chris Burson from the Angry Victorians Party blew the whistle on the rort. Picture: David Caird

This is because despite vastly different policies nearly all minor parties banded together, behind closed doors, to put the Greens below other parties on their group voting ticket.

The result was a flow of votes that meandered through minor party candidates until one of them won a seat.

Did voters mean for this to happen?

Almost certainly not.

Before Western Australia reformed its electoral system, a candidate from the Daylight Saving Party was elected off 98 primary votes.

Proponents of the current system say voters do have a choice, of course, if they want to control their own preferences.

That is, to number at least five boxes ‘below the line’ instead of number one box at the top of the ballot paper.

Almost 9 per cent of people did that in 2018.

There’s an easier long-term solution, though.

Recent Senate reforms mean voters now have to rank six parties above the line, or 12 candidates below the line, meaning they have more control of preferences.

Our political parties must change state laws and fix the broken group voting ticket system.

Until then, if you want to control where your vote goes rather than let Druery and others decide, vote below the line.