Bill Debate: Electoral Amendment (Miscellaneous Matters) Bill 2026

BILL DEBATE:

‘ELECTORAL FURTHER AMENDMENT BILL 2026 – COUNCIL AMENDMENTS’.

Wednesday, 29 July 2026

Mr NEWBURY (Brighton) (14:43):

I rise to speak on the Electoral Amendment (Miscellaneous Matters) Bill 2026.

I do note the importance of the Bill and the importance of fixing a problem in our electoral system with speed, and that is why I will make a few comments, not use the full time for comments. I know one of my colleagues intends to do the same, and I believe that a number of Members on the other side will make a few brief comments as well and the Bill will be dealt with later this day. That is important.

There is no doubt that the group voting system that has been in place in Victoria has been in place because, I suspect, the former former Premier Daniel Andrews supported the system because it gamed the system for the left, simply put. I do acknowledge that action is now being taken post his premiership to address that. It is something that the Liberals and Nationals support. We support the stopping of gaming the system. Simply put, we support the change that is being proposed in this Bill because the system was being gamed, where a very small number of candidates were working together with a very small number of votes to game the system. We have seen terrible examples over time, both State and Federally, where a number of candidates have worked together and with assistance from people – electoral hit experts, as they would say, who understand the system – to game the system. It was wrong.

Federally, action was taken. There has been a very longstanding push at a state level for action here too, and that action was delayed. As I said earlier, I think that there is probably some common recognition that that was because of the views of former former Premier Daniel Andrews. I think that he preferred an upper house where there were certain left-wing elected members – and when I say ‘elected’, I mean through a very, very small number of votes. He preferred working with an upper house that was, I suggest, perhaps in some cases the extreme left, because it suited his purpose to try and find and cobble together votes to pass his legislation and his legislative reforms through the Upper House.

We support reform, and that is why I intend to make some comments and assist with the passage of this Bill. I may say, though, we were first notified formally of this Bill on, from memory, Friday. It may have been Thursday; if it was Thursday, excuse me, but I believe it was Friday. As soon as we were formally advised of the Bill, we were provided a briefing with the former Premier’s office, on Sunday, and I do acknowledge and appreciate the briefing on this Bill on a Sunday. We were very keen to have it, and I do acknowledge that the former Premier’s office was clearly doing a lot of things at the time. In that briefing we made it clear that when it comes to group voting reforms, we support group voting reform. There are other matters in the Bill which I will briefly speak to, but we actually said, if it would assist, if the Government proposed simply group voting reform, we could immediately support it without any delay at all.

There are a number of other matters which do not appear to be controversial, and we obviously, given the timeframe, have had to take the Government at its word that a number of these Amendments have been pushed, for want of a better word, by the Victorian Electoral Commission. We are taking the Government at face value in relation to the other Amendments. If I can break them into two parts, firstly there are a series of vote-saving measures which do align with the Commonwealth regime of vote saving. We support a vote-saving mechanism. For
everybody – and I am sure many people in this Chamber have stood and scrutineered – vote saving is important. We want to make sure that everybody’s democratic vote is counted. There are circumstances where people make mistakes or misunderstand how to vote, and it is a real shame when you see those votes. Many times, you understand what you believe the voter intended to say. The practice now is that those votes are set to the side and the district manager will review each of those votes manually and approve each of those votes manually. For example, if a box is not fully filled in or perhaps, they have filled in a list of numbers but put a tick in one of those boxes, where it is clear what their preference is, there is a question about the validity of that vote. We want to save that vote. We want to make sure that their vote is counted. Most of the time now, through a system of practice per se more than anything else – it certainly is not through legislation – district managers are given effectively a practice note on votes to save where those measures are in place. What this legislation does in relation to vote saving is put that practice into law, and that is a good thing. As I said, it mirrors the Commonwealth legislation. It ensures that if there is a list of numbers and there is a break but a break that is obvious – or a tick or a cross where the intention is obvious – that vote is counted. We support that.

There are also a small number of Amendments in relation to the Part 12 electoral changes that were put through this place in March. They were very contentious. My understanding in relation to this Bill is the changes in this Bill are not contentious per se, in that a number of the March reforms enabled changes through regulation, and there has been a question from the Victorian Electoral Commission as to whether or not they should have been made through legislation, so this is formalising those changes – things like the reporting of overpayments by nominated entities. It does not effectively create a new power; what it does is it formalises it by way of legislation rather than regulation, which was proposed in the March legislation. It does not go into the more contentious parts of that bill. Noting that we are talking about Part 12, it would be remiss of me not to say we have a very longstanding concern in relation to the way that the Government has managed donation laws and of course have said that we do not support the way that the Government amended the law in March, effectively putting caps on everything except unions. There is simply an uncapped donation river from the unions, which is enabled through those Part 12 legislative reforms. It is shocking, I know, but that currently is the case. The Coalition have said that we do not support it, and we certainly will not let it stand if we are honoured to be elected at the November election later this year. Those are the three things that this Bill
does: group voting, vote saving and clarifying legislative heads of power in relation to some of the Part 12 changes that occurred in March.

I will finish where I began by saying that we support the measures in relation to group voting. We believe that this has been long needed, and I do acknowledge that we are not the only party not in Government to have pushed that. We have believed for a very long time that votes should not be gamed. Victoria was out of step with the rest of the country. As I said before, I believe it was because of the former former Premier and his views on group voting and I guess his practical want in relation to numbers in the Upper House. I guess there is no other way to say it. We have been out of step with the rest of the country. We have seen terrible examples, including at a federal level – I do not in any way say that it was just at a state level that we have seen abuse and gaming of the system – and at the federal level they took action. I am glad that we are seeing action through this Bill, which is why not only are we supporting its speedy passage but we will be ensuring and facilitating as best we can the Bill going through the Chamber today and going through, as I anticipate, for debate in the Council tomorrow.