Democracy, of a sort, for Victoria

There has still been no official announcement, but the Age at the weekend reports in very confident tones that group voting tickets (GVTs) are set for abolition in Victoria, the last state where they are still in use. The reporters’ sources say that “Premier Jacinta Allan was preparing to introduce legislation at the end of July to end the controversial system,” under which parties rather than voters determine the destination of preferences in the Legislative Council.

Readers will probably remember our past coverage of the issue, such as this post from last December on the report from the Electoral Matters Committee. I said then that Labor would hardly have “let its members on the committee stick their necks out” like that if it wasn’t actually planning to legislate, but as the months passed with no commitment people started to have their doubts.

The GVT entrepreneurs started preparing a range of dodgy parties to take advantage of the system, as well as a propaganda campaign to argue against change. They now had a new argument available, selling GVTs as a way to counter One Nation: a daring claim to make, given that GVT deals in the past had assisted One Nation and other far-right parties. Friends of democracy were not convinced, and mounted an opposing campaign.

Abolition of GVTs will, at least to some extent, benefit major parties at the expense of minor parties, and within the minor party space it will benefit the “real” ones – those with an identifiable line and an actual support base – at the expense of the unprincipled “front” parties. If One Nation’s polling holds up until November then it will probably reap some of that benefit, although if you’re really worried about One Nation it’s the lower house that is the big problem.

As I’ve noted before, the minor parties are quite correct to point out that abolition of GVTs without modifying or (preferably) abolishing the system of upper house regions is an unsatisfactory outcome. But that is entirely Labor’s fault, both for having foolishly entrenched the regional setup in the first place and then for dragging its feet on reform for so long as to leave no time for constitutional change to be settled on and passed.

From Labor’s point of view, though, it made sense to leave change until the last minute. The present minor parties in the upper house, who owe their seats to GVTs, were always going to be hostile to change and to make as much trouble for the government as they could; this way, the time they have in which to do that will be only short. And like other experts in the field (such as Antony Green, who took up the subject again yesterday), I remain firmly of the view that abolition of GVTs is an important gain even in the absence of structural reform.

But the reality is that, despite the fine words from the Electoral Matters Committee, it’s not going to be easy to convince whoever forms government after November to make a move on getting rid of the regions. Electoral reform is never popular with those who’ve done well out of the unreformed condition. It will take constant pressure from the supporters of democracy, and we may well be in for another long-term struggle that matches the campaign against GVTs themselves.