Seventeen days on, with yesterday’s resolution of counting for the Legislative Council, the real winner of the Victorian election can now be confirmed.
His name is Glenn Druery, staffer to Senator Derryn Hinch and preference manipulator extraordinaire.
Druery’s achievements on this occasion put all his previous efforts into the shade, with micro-parties — taken to mean everyone other than Labor, Liberal, Nationals and Greens — accounting for fully a quarter of the members in the 40-seat chamber.
Not all of them are formally part of the Druery preference network — certainly not Fiona Patten, of what was once the Sex Party and is now the Reason Party, who lodged a police complaint about Druery’s activities during the campaign.
However, it would seem that at least half of them are, and they can shortly expect to be invoiced for Druery’s reported $50,000 “success fee”.
Druery will also be in the good books with his boss, as three of the seats have gone to Derryn Hinch’s Justice Party, which can now single-handedly deliver Labor the numbers it needs to pass contentious legislation.
In fairness to the micro-parties, they can claim the support of more than one in five upper house voters as a collective, with the Hinch party especially achieving its victories from fairly creditable shares of the vote (from 4.5% in Western Victoria region to 6.8% in Western Metropolitan).
Shooters, Fishers and Farmers also polled well enough to claim a genuine mandate from country voters, and, if anything, can feel peeved that they only have one seat to show for their efforts.
On the whole though, the result is yet another indictment of a system that puts a higher premium on opaque backroom deals than the conscious intentions of voters — and without question, the main victims of the injustice are the Greens.
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It’s not currently fashionable to lend a sympathetic ear to the Greens’ excuse-making for their poor performance, which has seen their upper house representation slashed from five seats to one, as some of it was undoubtedly down to the internal dramas that crippled their campaign.
Nonetheless, the Greens outpolled every micro-party, in most cases by substantial margins, in seven of the eight regions (the exception being Shooters, Fishers and Farmers’ highly creditable 7.9% in Northern Victoria, which nonetheless failed to win them a seat there).
The most egregious case was the defeat of Sue Pennicuik in Southern Metropolitan region, whose 13.5% vote share compared with 1.3% for the winning candidate of the anti-immigration Sustainable Australia party.
In terms of votes received, the Greens’ performance overall wasn’t nearly as bad as advertised; their vote share in the inner-city seats grew for the fifth election in a row, helping deliver three seats in the lower house, their best result yet at a general election.
However, the devastating upper house result raises questions as to whether a focus on increasing its lower house footprint is ultimately in the party’s own best interests.
While preference harvesting was the main culprit, a drop in support in suburban Melbourne also played its part, and could well be seen as a consequence of prioritising inner-city seats and the youthful demographic that dominates them.
For all the prestige attached to the lower house, winning seats there only delivers real influence in the unusual circumstance of a hung parliament — something Labor managed to avoid at this election in rather spectacular style.
It’s in the upper house that legislation will stand or fall over the next four years, and here the Greens now carry a third as much influence as Derryn Hinch’s party, and — as David Leyonhjelm was quick to gloat about yesterday — half as much as the Liberal Democrats.
As for Labor, it emerges with a multiplicity of potential pathways in securing the three extra votes it needs in addition to its own representation of 18 seats, including a left-of-centre bloc consisting of the Greens, Fiona Patten and Animal Justice — and perhaps also with a sense that the system isn’t quite as badly in need of reform as it may seem to the rest of us.
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Ha Ha. Suck shit Greens! The facts speak for themselves as do the election results. The Greens find foul with everything as they are perennial whingers. In this conversation let me say firstly to the Greens by way of constructive debate. Appeal to a mass of people! Target the broader public not niche issues and bitchy talking points of relevance mainly to the inner city armchair set. Facts: the Greens vote in the lower house fell by 0.75% however it fell in the upper house by 1.5%. This is what micro parties do, chip away at the vote of all the major and minor parties and it is telling that the Greens are a true Marxist and anti-democratic and anti-freedom party. I know this and others can realise this from an analysis of their history in NSW. That is why they did a Judas style deal with the Libs federally to change the voting preferential deal in the Senate, so that they could dominate. Let’s fuck the Greens nationally as well. Don’t vote for them federally in the upper house. Vote micro parties instead. So for the Greens to improve their vote and moral community standing, they should develop policies that appeal to the broader electorate. The Labor party in Victoria has and is going ahead with increased health services, large rail infrastructure works especially in the south east to Frankston, attention to education issues and have stolen the Greens mantle in Injecting rooms and Safe Schools. I contrast the effective Labor party in NSW with their dysfunctional counterparts in NSW. ’ll never vote for them again and would probably only support them in QLD because of their support for protection of the GBR. Vic. State Greens care more about federal issues than state issues and that is their fundamental downfall. Not the only one but the main fundamental one. That’s all for the moment.
What a load of self serving nonsense. What’s that saying? “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.”
We are looking at just one state election here and you just can’t contain yourself. We understand your pain at our current state of politics and the public’s belief that there is no policy difference between Labor and the LNP. However, this is no reason to draw the wrong conclusion from an electoral system that is able to be easily manipulated so that the will of the electorate is not necessarily represented. For example, as Bowe rightly indicates in relation to Southern Metropolitan region, whose 13.5% vote share compared with 1.3% for the winning candidate of the anti-immigration Sustainable Australia party. So according to your convoluted logic this would mean that the majority of the electorate is anti immigration.
“Appeal to a mass of people! Target the broader public not niche issues and bitchy talking points of relevance mainly to the inner city armchair set.” Oh yeah, like the micro parties you recommend such as the Reason Party (formerly the Sex Party), Derryn Hinch’s Justice Party, Shooters, Fishers and Farmers, Sustainable Australia party, Liberal Democrats and the Animal Justice Party. Please advise just how these parties appeal to the broader public.
Your bias against the Greens Party is palpable, especially considering Labor’s constant capitulation to Liberal Party legislation that has so recently been identified in Crikey. And as for your “So for the Greens to improve their vote and moral community standing”, what utter bullshit. No party has been more moral regarding policy and voting than the Greens, even at the expense of their popularity. Give us a break! No one needs lecturing about morality from any of our morally bankrupt major political parties or their apparatchiks. Now just remind us again what Crikey participants response to Labor’s week kneed passing of the encryption legislation was again, I dare you. Oh yeah, this was just political posturing before the next election. Just let us know in what way this improved their moral community standing.
I’ve also no doubt that there is no political party more democratic than the Greens. Your political ignorance is unbelievable. So you know what a ‘true Marxist’ is apparently, as opposed to a false Marxist. Care to elaborate? With facts, not just conjecture and personal ‘belief’!
Your final recommendation betrays your right wing bias. Vote micro parties instead of Green. Yes, that plethora of single issue nut jobs that are just disaffected conservatives from the LNP!
No major or minor political party is going to take any of your recommendations seriously, except perhaps Glenn Druery, staffer to Senator Derryn Hinch and preference manipulator extraordinaire.
Even Bill Shorten is able to restrain himself from gloating over his chances at romping in at the next election for he knows, like so many times before, defeat can be snatched from the jaws of victory! Children overboard anybody!
What the result does say is that the major parties have all shifted to the right and have no over arching narrative to engage people with a cogent explanation as why their pay packets are slimmer and what to do about it.
As the top 1% get rich on the misuse of immigrates as can be seen via numerous scandal of underpayment in every sector of the economy, the bloated housing sector enslaving our youth to be debt slave for the rest of their lives.
As for the “anti-immigration Sustainable Australia party” how about you read their policies, they are not anti immigration but have a view that too many immigrants put too much pressure on infrastructure and the environment.
And their answer is to reduce immigration which we need to sustain our economy with retiring baby boomers combined with negative self replacement having a negative impact. Being proactive with infrastructure rather than reactive to deal with our congestion issues and providing incentives for people to stay or relocate to regional areas is a better policy.
Yes as the reports of Australia roads being slower than New York, as Australia being in the top 5 countries to rid itself of biodiversity to the point where some ecologists are saying where are at or near the tipping point.
But hey despite all the negative indicators we should shackle our children and grandchildren to addressing these disasters so US BOOMER can retire in luxury.
I wonder how much difference it would make to take the obvious action of removing above-the-line voting and leaving parties to display their preferences on their how-to-vote cards. Seems grossly undemocratic to have people casting a “vote” that they haven’t even seen for themselves, yet a lot of people currently put up with it to save themselves a few seconds at the booth after lining up for hours.
Two unrelated factual problems in yesterday’s Crikey. I don’t think it fair to list Rebel Wilson as a bad person just because she sued for defamation from those awful magazines which print just about anything without any regard for the truth. Nor is the depiction of the Sustainable Party as an anti immigration party an accurate reflection of their goals. They are not against immigrants – they are against the rising population both here and worldwide because it is making both Australia and the world unliveable.
Australia’s economy is sustained by immigration, especially with so many ‘baby boomers’ retiring and the need for skilled labour.
Australia’s economy can be responsibly sustained by sustainable levels of immigration. It does not require the excessive levels demanded by global capital and its local fellow travellers. Their vested interest is not the vested interest of 85% of Australians.
ScoMo has just admitted that any major reductions to our immigration rate would be accompanied by a significant budget hit. Which services and infrastructure spending would you vote to be reduced accordingly.
Well, if Mr Shouty sez so then it must be true.
Increasing immigration to account for retiring baby boomers is the very definition of a ponzi scheme Howard.
You have hit on one truth though. Immigration has been used to prop up budget numbers and has been dictated by Treasury, surely the worst department to be running immigration policy.
Indeed William, Labor will be in no hurry to change this disgraceful upper house lunacy, given that it has severely damaged their mortal enemy, The Greens.
I voted for Dan, my first ALP vote in decades because he actually built what he promised. I won’t vote Greens again until they expel that Richmond SWERF which is a pity as they’re still the best green party.
No matter how you slice and dice it though something is seriously wrong when a micro can get in on a few percent against a Green 13+% Changes to the electoral system are the trickiest to enact as they require rare confluences of political opportunism and timing. Or stupidity and gullibility in the case of Turnbull’s Senate voting changes. Above the line panders to stupidity and civic laziness. There’s enough already without encouraging it. Full optional preferential is the only truly democratic method.
The Greens got 9.25% statewide, which on a strictly proportional system would be 3.7 upper house members. But we don’t have a strictly proportional system… 12.85% isn’t close to a quota but would proooooobably get there under normal preferencing (not guaranteed, mind you because those voters putting all those right wing microparties first wouldn’t necessarily preference the Greens even if they forced to vote below the line). I don’t think there’s any other district where the Greens got enough that you’d expect they would snag the 5th seat on preferences.
Also the Greens owe the state seat of Prahran to preference harvesting to win the seat from 3rd place on primary votes, so let’s not get too high horsey about first preferences here. Preferences are a fair way to win, it’s just the argument that in this case the preferences don’t reflect the true intent of the voter (just a system that makes it easy for the vote to vote at the expense of their preferences not necessarily doing what they would expect).
The Hinches are potentially an existential threat to the Greens at state level in Victoria if they perform OK, as the Greens can only draw votes and preferences from the left of Labor, while the Hinches are basically occupying the centre ground which once belonged to the Australian Democrats and can get preferenced by EVERYBODY even if their primary vote isn’t quite as strong as the Greens.