Options for Upper House reform considered

The Victorian Parliament is considering those changes and has asked the Committee to look more broadly at possible changes to the electoral system for Victoria’s Upper House.  
 
We sat down with Dr Zareh Ghazarian, a Lecturer in Politics and International Relations at Monash University and an expert on electoral systems, to talk about the pros and cons of reforming the system.

Question: Why does the Upper House electoral structure matter?  
 
Zareh Ghazarian: The structure of the Upper House matters because it's a powerful chamber in the Victorian system of government. And ultimately this is a chamber that has a major say in the rules, the laws and how Victorians live their lives. So how people are elected to the chamber goes to the heart of Victoria's democracy. 
  
Q: How does the electoral structure affect who gets elected? And what makes a good electoral structure?

ZG: Essentially the voting system translates the choices people make at the ballot box into who gets elected.  
 
I think the characteristics of a sound voting system strengthen democracy. To have a strong democracy a good electoral structure is one that is straightforward, it is easy to understand and it's easy to see how the choices we make in the ballot box determine who gets elected.

Q: And what would you say are some of the issues with the current system in Victoria? 
  
ZG: I think one of the challenges when looking at electoral systems is the preference system. The idea is that preferences are distributed across the parties and across the candidates until a winner is elected. Working out the quota that's required for that is often seen to be a bit of a tricky matter. And it's very different to for example a straight out 50 per cent plus one voting system or something that is used also in other parts of the world where it's a first past the post system where a candidate doesn't even need to get 50 per cent plus one of the vote. 
 
In the Victorian system, an Upper House candidate must win a quota of the statewide vote and they can achieve that quota by winning directly or by gaining preferences from other parties and other candidates to cobble together the quota they need to win. 
  
Q: Other states have now eliminated the group voting ticket. Do you think that group voting tickets are a particular problem in Victoria? 
 
ZG: The benefit of the group voting ticket is that it allows people to cast their vote in a straightforward way and parties and candidates send the preferences in a predetermined way. 
 
That is an advantage, it allows voting to be straightforward and often much faster than if people had to number all of the candidates on the ballot paper that they are presented with. 
 
People can vote as they wish and they can determine the flow of the preferences by going through and allocating preferences below the line according to their wishes, but the beauty of the group voting ticket is that people can just list very quickly who their top preference is and let the party then work through it. 
  
Q: And the downside of that system? 
  
ZG: The downside of the system is that it may be the case that people are not familiar with how the first or the most preferred candidate will be sending their preferences through to other candidates, so this may potentially lead to an unexpected candidate winning seats. Voters may find that the preferences are going to someone that they don't necessarily wish to be elected. 
 
So it is very much a system that relies on voters being informed about how their preferences are going to be distributed by their preferred candidate and making sure that they either agree with it or, if they don't agree with it, have the ability to then determine the flow of preferences by themselves on the ballot paper.

“ 'The downside of the system is that it may be the case that people are not familiar with how the first or the most preferred candidate will be sending their preferences through to other candidates. ”

Dr Zareh Ghazarian, Lecturer in Politics and International Relations at Monash University

Q: So in some Australian jurisdictions they elect members from the state as a whole and then others elect them from regions. What difference does that make? 
  
ZG: One of the most important things about electing people from regions, I think is the significance of community. Regions allow the community to have closer connections with those who are elected to represent them and the expectation would be, I think, for MPs to be representing those areas to have close connections with that community as well. 

It also enhances accountability because MPs essentially have to explain their choices, their policy and choices, to their local communities. 
 
If we were thinking about the state as an entire region and voting based on that, then that connection with community, I believe is weakened. It reduces that immediate link between local voters and local representatives because in that situation we'd have voters who might, for example, be living in rural, regional or provincial areas, but may be represented by someone who is living in a metropolitan area or on the other side of the state. 
 
Q: The Committee’s example structures include 5-member, 7-member and 10-member regions – what difference does it make how many members are in a region? 
 
ZG: Well, one of the things about changing the number of MPs per region is that it will have an impact on how easy or hard it is to get elected. In short, the more MPs there are representing a region the easier I'd expect it to be to be elected. 
 
So you may find that in a system where there are many members representing an area there may be greater chance for minor parties or non-major party candidates winning seats, whereas if it was a contest between a small number for a small number of seats then generally, we find that it's the major parties or the established parties that tend to do best. 

The full terms of reference, a discussion paper and example structures are available on the Committee's website.