A month out from the Victorian state election, Ben and Benita Kolovos from the Guardian discuss the last four years of Victorian politics, the issues dominating the lead-up to the election, the impact of One Nation and the race for the upper house.
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Ben: Welcome to the Tally Room podcast. I’m Ben Raue.
Victoria will go to the polls in November in a state election that may be the most watched state election in Australia in a long time.
For today’s episode, we’re going to get up to speed on Victorian politics, the changes we’ve seen in the last term, the big policy issues that have dominated state politics, and the changes to the electoral system. This is the first of three pre-election podcasts covering the Victorian state election. My guest today is Benita Kolovos. Benita is Victorian state correspondent for The Guardian Australia. Hello Benita.
Benita: Hi, thanks for having me.
Ben: Thanks for coming on. But first, I’ve just launched the first range of merchandise for the Tally Room. You can now buy a hat that says waiting for the pre polls and a bag that says single transferable tote. These items are only available for a limited time. Pre orders must be in by Monday, November 2, so if you want to order something, please do so now. I don’t want you to miss out. The last Victorian state election was a third victory in a row for Daniel Andrews, who had led the state since 2014.
Meanwhile, John Pesutto had returned to Parliament as the new hope for the Liberal Party and immediately walked into the party leadership. A lot has changed since then. New leaders have taken over both major parties twice, and One Nation’s rise has shaken up the board. Benita, Labor came out of the 2022 election polling over 40%, and now they are polling in the mid-20s. What were the major issues that have led to the party losing all that support?
Benita: I think it started when Daniel Andrews resigned back in September 2023. Jacinta Allan took over from him. She, I guess, didn’t really command the same authority over her party room or also like the respect of of the public, right? Like Daniel Andrews was this, really confident, charismatic leader. Everyone kind of knew what he stood for and whether they agree with him or not.
They liked having that kind of politician with conviction. They didn’t really know as much about Jacinta Allan. And then I think from about the middle of 2024, so she’d been in the role for around six to nine months, we started to hear about these allegations of corruption on government construction sites. The big build. That was the dogged reporting of Nick Mackenzie at the age.
And that reporting continued almost weekly, sometimes even daily, for two years and Jacinta Allen did not want to call a Royal Commission into the issue. And I feel like that kind of took over the entire political discourse. So there was that element. the debt in Victoria is forecast to reach $199 billion in the next four years. We’re seeing things like you know, health services under a lot of pressure.
The pothole, I think, has become the symbol of this election. you drive down any street, whether it’s in regional or metropolitan Melbourne, and you’re seeing these big craters. And I think it’s just an illustration of if the government, can’t do this right, then you know, where’s the money going? And I think it all kind of ties back in to the big build as well. And I think that was the reason ultimately why the party room decided that they needed a leadership change so close to an election.
Ben: Yeah, I find it interesting with Jacinta Allan, towards the end her popularity was very poor.
Benita: it was worse than Scott Morrison or Peter Dutton’s which is quite extraordinary. I think her approval rating was just about to hit -50, which is a a figure we haven’t really seen before in state politics.
Ben: Yeah.
I’m curious though, we have a government here that’s been around a long time. We often see with governments that when they’re aging, problems pile up and there’s less less sympathy, less forgiveness from the voters. How much of that really was about her personally as opposed to her as the symbol as the leader of the party? Because since Ben Carroll has taken over for Allan, you know, he’s not as unpopular as she is, but it doesn’t seem like a lot has particularly changed in terms of the popularity of the government.
Benita: I think part of the issue with Jacinta Allan’s leadership was the fact that she didn’t really differentiate herself much from Daniel Andrews at the start. She’s from the same faction as him, very, very close to him. you know, kind of continued on with the Andrews era. and I do wonder, because obviously Ben Carroll’s come out, and I think it was like one of the first lines at his first press conference saying, I’m not Daniel Andrews, I’m not Jacinta Allan, and he has made some significant shifts. I do wonder if that had been earlier. there was talk about leadership change for, almost 12, you could even say 18 months. If, we think about the whispers around the 2025 election.
I do wonder if that might have shifted the fortunes. He’s obviously from a different faction, a very different type of Labor leader. His campaign bus has been unveiled and it literally says new Premier, new direction on it. So I do wonder if that’s enough. But then as you mentioned, twelve year government, Labor has never won a fourth term in Victoria. they’ve never done it after a leadership change and there’s been two. So I do wonder if it is an unsurmountable task.
Ben: Yeah, I’m looking at the polls here. the last few polls before Allan resigned, there was a 21 for Labor in terms of primary vote, but there’s some 26s, some 27s, there’s a 28 from Newspoll. And then in September and October, it’s all 24 and 25.
The worst of Jacinta Allan’s polls are a bit worse than what we’ve seen under Carroll, but he’s consistently been polling about the same or even a little bit less in terms of the party’s voting intention popularity than Allan was. And I think it does show like, he’s clearly trying to pursue this strategy of saying I’m a new guy. but I don’t really see any evidence of the voting public’s buying it. Like I think that they’re just like either you’re okay with Labor either way or you’re not. and it doesn’t look like much has changed.
Benita: I do think it’s really interesting because when I was speaking to Labor people at the start of the year, all the conversations are around how can we lift our primary to be in the high twenties or to have a three in front of it. That was the goal. and you know, people that were kind of agitating for a change, some of them reckon that Ben Carroll could have done that, but then when you speak to them now, you know, they say it was all about stemming the bleeding.
And they reckon that it would have gotten lower if Jacinta Allan had stayed, but obviously we’ll never know.
Ben: Jess Wilson now the third Liberal leader since the last election. John Pesutto was leader for a while. Interestingly, when I look at the polls the highest point of support for the Coalition actually came right before Pesutto was rolled. Like he was actually in a relatively strong position.
But his issues were all internal about his position within the Liberal Party, not about his ability to win votes in the broader community.
Benita: Yeah, and obviously he lost the defamation action put forward by his colleague, Moira Deeming, another Liberal MP. It put him in a position where he was having to pay significant legal fees and damages to a colleague. There was talk that if he had to try and pay that himself it would bankrupt him. So I just don’t think that it was tenable for him to stay in that position at that time.
And then obviously Brad Battin took over as leader after John Pesutto, a former police officer, you know, really kind of raised crime to be the main issue of the opposition. I think, you know, lost some support in his party room along the way with that strategy.
And then we saw Jess Wilson come in in a I would say a relatively bloodless leadership coup. It was pretty clinical. It was over within, I don’t even think it lasted 48 hours when you compare that to the prolonged issues that were facing John Pesutto. So she’s come in, she’s managed to unite, I would say, the party room. Like you’ve got people from both the, you know, moderate wing and the more conservative wing of the Liberal Party.
She’s brought them all together. She doesn’t have the baggage of the leaders that have come before her. She’s a first-term MP. So so far, it does look like everyone is working together. And, the polls are in their favor right now. So I think they could look at that and feel confident. And it’s enough to kind of bring people that may not necessarily like each other a lot together.
Ben: in terms of the kinds of areas they represent, the kind of image they present, Pesutto was clearly presenting a bit more of a moderate image, someone who theoretically could help the Coalition win back voters in the centre. Battin represented a much more outer suburban electorate and I think reflected that conservative image. And so Wilson in that sense, you know, like Pesutto, she’s in a seat which is quite a strong teal area. but
I think a lot of that is image. Not that she’s a significantly more moderate or less conservative politician, but it does seem like the party very much wanted to go for a leader that reflected that slightly more moderate positioning, aesthetics, style. but the problems that John Pesutto had kind of
Interrupted that trend.
Benita Kolovos (09:15)
Yeah, absolutely. It completely overshadowed it. and I think another good point to raise with Jess Wilson too is she’s a first-term MP. She’s young, she’s 36. it’s a really good kind of foil to a government, you know, a long-serving, tired government that’s had a lot of departures. And she’s talking a lot about being kind of like a fresh start, and it kind of is matched by who she is.
And I think she is also a moderate. She might not necessarily say it. I think the way that she describes herself ideologically is as a classical liberal, so focused on the economy, on providing services and the government kind of staying out of people’s way. So I don’t think we’ll see her get into those kind of culture wars, those fringe issues. and I think, on the whole, that’s the only way that you can win in Victoria. It is a more progressive state. you know, they need 16 seats to form government.
So they need to have broad appeal across the regions, across the outer suburbs, across the inner city. So I do worry if you lean too far one way or the other, that that equation to get that pathway to government becomes more difficult. So I think it does make sense having her in that role.
Ben: You would think that picking a leader like Jess Wilson may not be the best choice for the Coalition, the Liberal Party and including the Nationals more generally, in terms of holding off One Nation who have been consistently polling in the 20s in Victoria for quite a while now. Frankly, like neck and neck with Labor. Labor’s usually ahead of them, but not by very much. but it does seem like the primary vote that the Coalition is polling is quite poor. Like you would think that, in a typical two party race, that would not be enough.
But in the current circumstances, they could potentially be winning enough to scrape across the line and get a majority, even with such a large share of the right wing vote going to One Nation. But that’s going to be a real question for the campaign. And we’re going to talk a bit more about the psephology of, how many votes you need to win a majority and that kind of thing in a future episode and what seats are going to be in play.
But my modelling does show that 28-30% for one of the major parties probably is enough to win a majority, which I think people think is a bit counterintuitive. But to take the latest Newspoll that has been published in the last couple of days, it was polled last week, that had the Coalition on 33 and One Nation on 20, Labor on 24, that is probably a number where I reckon the Coalition could get a majority on those numbers.
They get One Nation preferences when they’re up against Labor and they get Labor preferences when they’re up against One Nation. And they’re far enough ahead of One Nation that there’s not a lot of getting knocked into third place happening there. So that’s gonna be really interesting to see. But how has that impacted on how the parties have talked about politics, have talked about the issues as One Nation has surged this year?
Benita: Look, I do think that you’re right. And at the moment I know it’s still, you know, a couple more weeks to go until the election, until the campaign really kicks off in earnest. I do suspect that what we’ll see with One Nation is, you know, they’ll help get the Liberals over the line in quite a few seats just based on how they’re polling at the moment. Labor is you know exploiting this.
They are going really hard on this idea that it’ll be a Liberal-One Nation coalition and that, One Nation will drag the Liberal Party, despite having a moderate leader, to the right. and they’ve been doing that on all sorts of issues, whether it’s in health, and you know, one of the biggest kind of political wedges I’ve seen recently is on abortion and and making that more accessible.
I thought it was telling that Jess Wilson, the day that Labor announced that they would make all abortion care free, she immediately matched it. So took the heat out of that issue. But I think they’ll continue to do that throughout the campaign.
On the Coalition side, they’re just completely avoiding even talking about it. You’ll go to a press conference, you’ll ask about preference arrangements, ask about if they’re in a minority government, would they work with One Nation, and you just get knocked back with the same response, which is ‘we’re running for a majority government’. So they’re not even playing into those hypotheticals. It’s interesting, right? Because if you went back a couple years, couple elections.
Those sorts of questions would be directed towards Labor and and the Greens and Labor would say the exact same thing. you know, we’re running for a a majority, we’re not gonna be working with the Greens. So now we’re seeing it on this side of politics as well. but yeah, the way that the polling’s playing out, I do get a sense when I speak to Liberal MPs in particular, that they are getting more and more confident that they can get there on their own.
Ben: I think a big part of this story of this election is the Labor-Liberal swing voter. Because you look at the statewide totals, and okay, the Coalition vote’s down, right? They’re on 33%. And late last year, when One Nation wasn’t really in the polls at all, they were polling in the high 30s to 40%. You know, the last Redbridge poll at the end of 2025 had the Coalition on 40. So it looks like they’re down.
But actually, once you combine them with One Nation, that’s 53% of the vote in the most recent Newspoll. It’s usually in the low 50s as a combined vote. When you look at a two-party preferred question, you know, the last few have had them on 52, 53, 56, 55. So there’s clearly a majority of the state voting in a conservative direction. So some voters have switched from Labor to Liberal.
And I suspect what’s going on here is that the coalition is gaining some votes and they’re losing others. And frankly, I think they’re gaining votes in a way that’s very efficient for them. They’re probably gaining urban votes, votes that are in marginal seats, and they’re losing votes in their rural base. and I think the question, and I think it’s a smart strategy for Labor, I don’t think it’s really working right now, but we’ll see, is to communicate to those voters going, okay, you might be comfortable with a Coalition majority.
But you’re not going to get that. You’re going to get the Coalition possibly the Liberal Party dependent on One Nation. And that looks extremely likely back when the three parties were basically tied. You know, you looked at a situation where One Nation would wipe out the National Party and you’d have a basically a three-way tie and you’d have a very strong One Nation in the middle able to dictate terms. Since then I think things have changed. The Coalition’s vote is picking up a little bit. Maybe they get to the majority without needing it.
But it’s obviously very awkward for the Liberal Party. It’s a topic they want to stay away from. So I think it makes perfect sense from their perspective to not want to answer your question on that. because there is no real good answer, you know, because they need to hold on to that conservative base. but they are also trying to hold on to those moderate urban voters who are switching from Labor to Liberal, who maybe aren’t big fans of the idea of One Nation being so influential in politics.
And so their hope is to cross their fingers and hope they get to a majority in their own right. I’d be interested to know from your perspective as someone who watches this stuff closely. We’re always talking about preferences and we will talk about preferences in a minute. But I’m also really interested in what a hung parliament dynamic would look like.
If the Coalition gets within a couple of seats of a majority, they’re probably okay. But if they’re a long way short of a majority and one nation has a large block of votes, how do they work with those people? What sort of agreement do they reach? Can they rely on them to form a government? has there been any conversation about that? Is that something that’s coming up in press conferences? That kind of thing?
Benita: We’re trying, but we’re not getting many answers to these questions. And I think they are important questions. I think that Antony Green made a really good point recently about this too. One Nation MPs don’t have a really good track record of staying One Nation MPs throughout a term of government. So I do wonder if we had that sort of situation would they necessarily stay with their party, would it be easier for a Coalition government in minority to kind of pick off a few of these One Nation turned independent candidates? Would a couple jump ship? I think it would be anything but predictable. I think if we were in that sort of situation, it would be a very wild couple of years. There are independents running as well. I’m not sure how well
independents will do this election, given that kind of protest vote appears to be going to One Nation or like the more right side of politics. but yeah, we could also have a situation where if they are off by one or two and there is an independent in there, that that would be their pathway through.
Ben: You look at New South Wales right now, we have a hung parliament in New South Wales, but the dynamics are very different because the government is just short of a majority and they have a lot of people they can work with. So no one really is in a position of great power. like after that election, I think there were twelve crossbenchers, independents and Greens, in the lower house and the government was two votes short of a majority. So they did come to an agreement, but they came to an agreement with I think three independents who they were closest to and they left everyone else else off, but they always had that o that option. and so, like let’s say for example, One Nation wins, say 15 seats, which if they fall a long way behind the Coalition, they might do a lot worse than that. But that’s quite plausible. If the coalition is two votes short of a majority and there’s fifteen One Nation members, that fragmentation probably would work for Wilson.
But if they’re 12 or 13 votes short of a majority, they’re kind of reliant on a unified One Nation that can be a partner in government. And apart from any ideological concerns about sharing power with the far right, which is always going to be a question, I’m just not sure One Nation is actually capable of being that partner, you know, even if the Coalition was willing to do it.
Benita: They say they have a list, One Nation. They’ve talked about their list of demands, but they haven’t really told anyone what their list of demands looks like. They have said though that you know, changes to abortion laws are not one of them. I guess they don’t want to get wedged by Labor on that either. But yeah, it hasn’t happened.
And I think that’s why there are so many eyes on this election, is because this is the first one really, like we were starting to see this rise of One Nation at the South Australian election, but it really came after that with the Farrer federal by election, right? that this could be a party that could actually have a say in the direction of a state. They’re not just gonna be one person or a couple people in a chamber, going off at whoever’s in government. This would be a very significant thing.
Ben: The big difference between Victoria and South Australia, right, was in South Australia we knew we were gonna get the Labor government re-elected. Malinauskas was very popular, the Liberal Party was a total mess, and there was no doubt about that. So people could vote for One Nation, even elect One Nation members, and it didn’t really have any influence on the government.
And I do think that might be a question for voters if they think Wilson is on the verge of winning a majority or not. Are there conservative voters who go back to Wilson, who stick with the local conservative MP, because they’re on the verge of having a Coalition government and they don’t want to stuff that up? And I suspect that isn’t a big force that voters who are switching to One Nation don’t really care about that. But it could be a factor and that hasn’t really been tested yet.
But yeah, that’s gonna be interesting to see in the campaign. Likewise, Labor’s effort targeting those Labor-Liberal swing voters saying you don’t want one nation anywhere near government, have an effect too and bring Labor back? Because, you know, Labor’s polling very poorly, but I also think they could probably win an election with a really low vote. You know, I did some modelling at one point that suggested they could win a majority on like 28% of the vote.
And that’s because of a few things. One is there’s quite a high Greens vote, which also means it’s plausible that there could be a Labor-Greens majority in Parliament. There’ll be a lot of preferences from the Greens flowing to Labor, but also the Coalition and One Nation, you can’t just add their votes together because quite a large number of those voters aren’t going to preference the other party over Labor.
And so Labor will benefit in close races from voter leakage where the two parties won’t go to each other. Can I ask you about preferences? Because I’ve seen a little bit of talk about it. The Coalition hasn’t announced their policy. I’m extremely confident that they’re going to preference One Nation because I don’t think they have any other option. They are bleeding votes on their right. They need to hold on to that part of their supporter base. And preferencing Labor over One Nation just wouldn’t be feasible. What are you seeing?
Benita: I think we have a little clue in the by-election that we had in Nepean earlier this year, where they preferenced One Nation third, and then they had the Libertarian candidate above them. Labor weren’t running in that seat, so it’s not, like for like comparison, but I think we will see depending on the seat, maybe other candidates, but One Nation will definitely be high up on their ballot.
Another question is what they do with Greens preferences. So at the last election, they preferenced Greens above Labor, and I think that helped the Greens in a seat like Richmond. will they do the same this time? The federal election in 2025 came in the context of the war in the Middle East between, Israel and Hamas and the Liberals were saying that, we have to have the Greens last because of how they responded to that. Will they do the same here or will they put the Greens above Labor? And then, potentially that could impact a whole bunch of inner city seats that may go green over red.
Ben: Hmm. And I think they are going to preference the Greens higher. And I think it mainly is to simplify their message, which is a ‘put Labor last’ message. There’s an Instagram video from Nicole Werner that I watched where she was talking to a character that represents someone who was voting first for they didn’t say One Nation, but it was basically One Nation, and then just donkey voted the rest of their ha of their ballot paper, and this person accidentally has preferenced Labor.
And the pitch was clearly directed at conservative voters to make sure they preference the other conservative parties and they don’t go to Labor. And I think if that means that the Greens benefit in a few inner city seats where they’re not really that interested in those seats, so be it. And I suspect that is where it’s going. It sounds like One Nation is also thinking that they’re pursuing that policy of put Labor last. And so the Greens benefit there, not so much because anyone wants to preference them higher, but preferences are complicated. And you wanna keep things simple and it’s a simple message.
Benita: Advance are also running in twenty seats a campaign around ‘Put Labor Last’. There is a little bit of concern within the Liberal Party about that because it basically is kind of such a thing, it doesn’t necessarily matter who you put number one on your ballot as long as Labor’s last on it. And the seats that they’re targeting are seats like Pakenham where One Nation’s leader Warren Pickering is running. So there’s a bit of concern there that maybe that could inadvertently help One Nation, when the Liberals and the Nationals have been saying the only way to change the government is to put us first.
Ben: It reminds me of how GetUp used to work in these kind of contests where they intervened in elections but they didn’t want to pick a side between Labor and the Greens. And so often I think both sides resented their involvement because they wouldn’t pick. But for someone like Advance, I I think it makes perfect sense because they would have supporters on either side of that fence.
And that’s their agenda. You know, they don’t have the same agenda as the Coalition.
So I’m not surprised by that, but I think that does point to an effort to encourage conservative voters to keep their preferences tight, which will help keep Labor out of power, but you’re right, it’s not particularly helpful for getting a Coalition majority government.
Benita: Yeah, these are seats like Melton and and Yan Yean, Hastings, Bass, all ones that One Nation are targeting.
Ben: Now, Victoria’s Legislative Council has a new voting system. Both of us have talked a lot about this as an issue, getting rid of group voting tickets. It will be interesting to see what this does to nominations because a lot of these small parties that were relying on group voting tickets to win seats in the Legislative Council consistently would run candidates across every region.
And most these parties haven’t announced a lot of candidates yet. And I suspect even if they still run, they might focus their efforts on one or two regions. And that might actually result in much smaller ballot papers, which could also mean that, you know, people are always anxious about votes exhausting. But, you know, voters are going to be asked to number at least five boxes on the ballot paper.
I suspect based on what happened in the Senate, most people will do exactly that. Five, no more, no less. but five goes a lot further on a ballot of fifteen parties than it does on a ballot of twenty-five. So if that ballot is getting smaller, it gets easier to vote, it gets easier to mark your preferences, more of those votes flow. So that’s going to be interesting to watch. what are you seeing about how the parties are campaigning and how the the new voting system might be affecting that?
Benita: I think the key difference is obviously how we vote’s gonna look like the Senate, but the quota to get elected is a lot bigger than if you’re in the Senate. So I think the quota is now 16.7% to get a seat. So I think that will ultimately end up favoring the major parties and One Nation as well.
I’m expecting to see, you know, most of those upper house candidates in the number one spot for One Nation to be successful and possibly even pick up a second spot. It does make it really hard for you know candidates like Georgie Purcell for Animal Justice Party, who’s you know been a pretty vocal and and key member of the upper house chamber this term. I think for her to be successful, I imagine she’d have to overtake the Greens in that seat. So it’s a big task that you’re asking for with with the way that the numbers kind of stack up.
Ben: I think you’re right. I think most of those minor parties, probably all of them, will get wiped out and the upper house will be solely Labor, Coalition, One Nation, Greens. I think you’re right. Someone like Georgie Purcell probably needs to get ahead of the Greens and then get their preferences, and that’s a big ask, and I don’t think that will happen, to be frank.
It will be interesting to see how people like her will poll though, because in the past, people who’ve lucked their way in on group voting tickets really haven’t been very successful at then building up their support in other ways.
She’s been prominent, but does that reflect a real base of support in the community? Is she able to poll more? And like, if there’s less parties on the ballot, that will probably make that a little bit easier for people to find her.
Benita: Particularly like, yeah, the regions too, because she’s in Northern Victoria, which is a a regional seat. And I would suspect a lot of her support she would have it in the regions, absolutely. And I know she works a lot with like the shelters and community groups in her electorate. But I imagine a lot of her support would also be in the city as well, with, you know, young women.
Ben: Yeah. And like the regions – the regions mostly don’t really reflect real communities, right? They’re too big to reflect local communities, but they don’t even, particularly in Melbourne, reflect the broader communities. they’re just arbitrary lines largely.
And that’s, I think that is a good argument about why it’d be worth getting rid of them. But really they’re there. And I mean, interestingly, after the group voting tickets debate was done, I went back and read the Constitutional Commission that the Bracks government set up.
I really wish I’d read this a bit earlier. I didn’t realise it existed until quite recently, where they went through the options of creating an upper house. But it’s very explicit back then that they have picked eight regions specifically to create a barrier to entry. Like it is designed for a barrier to entry, not particularly for local representation.
Like there was always an understanding that there’s not much local representation that you get out of it. It’s designed that way to raise the bar. and so there would be these debates about the upper house and I would be like, it’s not my place to say, but yes, there is a bar and you get rid of the bar by abolishing the regions.
Benita: And I think that’s why so many people were upset with how the government approached the changes to the upper house, right? Like they had had an inquiry, they’d come up with new models to make it more, I guess, fair, and that I think requires a referendum. So that was always going to be a big ask to do. But the fact that they knew about this issue for, you know, multiple terms of government.
And they left it until, was it July? Late July when Ben Carroll became premier.
And it’s just now left us with a system that…it isn’t equitable, is it?
Ben: Well, it is gonna reflect the proportions of how people vote.
I think if we get a majority of the state voting for the conservative forces, they will win a majority in the upper house. And it in a way it’s gonna be a lot simpler because, if a region votes to the left, you’ll get you’ll get three Labor or Greens MLCs and they win that region. And there’ll be eight regions and whoever wins more of the regions wins a majority. And so in that sense it’s simple and fair, equitable
I don’t know, it can play the same on left and right.
It’s designed discrimination against small parties in order to encourage consolidation and avoid the parties fragmenting, which is exactly what that fragmentation is what the old system has done. It’s interesting to compare it to the Senate, because the Senate is mostly now Labor, Coalition, One Nation, Greens. You know, you’ve got Jacqui Lambie in tassie, you’ve got Pocock in the ACT, and then you’ve got a bunch of defectors and that’s about it.
And so, in a sense, what they wanted, what those crossbenchers wanted, was something a bit more like the New South Wales upper house or the WA upper house, where you do get Animal Justice, Legalised Cannabis.
Benita: What’s the quota in those?
Ben: New South Wales, it’s four and a half percent.
Benita: Yeah.
Ben: And in WA, I think it’s like 2.7 So they are like 37 members in one region. So if you got rid of all the regions, Victoria would be about the same as WA. And so I just think, I don’t think it’s necessarily good or bad, but it’s a choice about how much you represent the exact proportions of everyone that they vote for, or how much do you kind of force people to reach a threshold of support before they can get in. because those preferences will flow, you know, and those parties’ preferences may make a difference about deciding if One Nation or the Greens gets the final seat in a region.
It’s not like New Zealand where if a party falls below their barrier, their votes don’t count at all. here, those votes will still have value. and I think in in the future we might see small parties winning.
But to come back to the point about how those upper house regions don’t really reflect real communities, I do find the West Party in Western Melbourne quite interesting because it does seem like they have tried to identify themselves with a regional identity of Western Melbourne.
And I don’t know how much that really reflects how people in Western Melbourne think of themselves. but that’s what they’re targeting. And in a sense, if they were ever successful, it would follow the model of Nick Xenophon, Brian Harradine, Jacqui Lambie, they’re not trying to get people elected across the whole country, although they’ve all been tempted at times to run candidates elsewhere, but they have a lot of success in one place, and that is enough to get elected.
You know, you could imagine someone who has concentrated support in Western Victoria getting elected there, but I don’t think the West Party are at that stage yet. I think it’s more of an interesting idea than something that’s gonna be pulled off in 2026.
Benita: I spent a couple days out in the northwest recently to write some seat profiles. And I think if there wasn’t that One Nation surge, they’d be doing a lot better. Because I feel like that anti-establishment, you know, my area’s voted Labor for the whole time it’s existed. You know, I want to shake things up, but I don’t kind of identify with the Liberal Party.
I think those voters are currently parking themselves with One Nation rather than the West Party. And then the other region where I’m seeing this happen is Southern Metro, the independent candidate that ran in Hawthorn at the last election against John Pesutto, she’s now running on a ticket for the upper house – Melissa Lowe, it’s interesting to see that kind of strategy of maybe we can try this in the upper house instead and how effective that’ll be.
Ben: Well, it’ll be interesting if she’s presenting herself as a kind of tealish candidate because the share of the vote you need to get elected to the upper house is a lot less than what you need to win an individual seat in the lower house. But first of all, you’ve got to do it over eleven seats, so it’s got to be much more distributed.
And secondly, I think those teals have always benefited from some Labor and some Greens voters who might still sincerely support those parties but vote for a teal because they think they can win. And in the upper house that’s not relevant, you know, because the Greens and Labor can win everywhere. it’s very obvious that those teal candidates and there are a couple of seats where the teals have done quite well in Melbourne in recent elections at a state level, but just haven’t been able to get elected. Hawthorn, Kew come to mind.
Benita: Mornington, she got pretty close as well.
Ben: Yeah, Mornington, that’s a good one as well. they’ve done quite well in those electorates. and they’ve clearly gotten a lot of Labor and Greens voters switching to them. But how much of those people who sincerely prefer this independent to Labor or the Greens? And I think there’s probably some of that. And how much is this a strategic choice by those voters? And I’m pretty sure it’s a bit of both. Like I’m sure it’s a bit of both. We we can’t say exactly how much.
Benita: But then I speak to people that say I vote for Labor in the lower house, but then Greens in the upper house to, you know, influence how a bill is. Admittedly it would be a pretty small group of people, but I wonder if there’d be any any of them that might be voting for the liberals in the lower house and maybe a teal in the upper house to keep them small-l liberal.
Ben: It would be interesting. I think as someone who grew up with parents who voted for the Democrats in the Senate and did not vote for the Democrats in the lower house for my childhood. I think there’s a lot of that that goes on.
There was this story about the Liberal candidate for Sunbury, Simmone Cottom, who was recorded talking to a voter and kind of at one point said, Well, you can vote One Nation in the upper house and Liberal in the lower house. I don’t think she’s advocating a One Nation vote.
Like I think the reporting made it sound like something it wasn’t quite that.
Benita: It made it sound like it was a bit organised, right? Like this was some sort of talking point.
Ben: She was trying to talk someone down because she was imagining that this voter was considering voting One Nation for everything.
And she was trying to talk them down from that. Basically, it was a compromise negotiation position, which then became clear the voter like, Well, I’m not going to vote for One Nation. So it is interesting that I reckon this candidate has probably had a lot of conversations with other voters who think that way and has made an assumption about this voter. But she would absolutely prefer they vote Liberal in both houses.
But it’s that recognition that there are a kind of voter who will do that and she wants their lower house vote and I think there will be a decent number of people who vote One Nation in the upper house, vote Coalition in the lower. It would be an interesting strategy if you’re a moderate Liberal who is worried about the Coalition being dependent on One Nation. Take this latest Newspoll, which had the Coalition on 33, One Nation on 20. That might be enough to get a majority in the lower house. You’re not getting close to a majority in the upper house on that. Maybe on average you’re getting two per electorate.
So maybe you get 40% of the chamber, but they would absolutely be dependent on One Nation in the balance of power on those numbers.
I don’t know how much people are thinking this through, but I could imagine a more moderate Liberal voter saying, I’m gonna vote for Jess Wilson to form government, but I want someone a bit more progressive as a counterbalance to One Nation in the upper house.
Benita: Like I said, I think it would be a switched on voter, but I can see that happening. And I think it’s also worth noting, we did see a lot during this term of government, the Liberals and the Greens working together to kind of put pressure on Labor, whether it was setting up parliamentary inquiries or successfully getting motions up. Could they possibly work together in the upper house? I don’t know.
Ben: I think it’s a lot easier for them to work together when they’re not in power.
Benita: Yeah. And when there’s a common enemy, right?
Ben: Yeah, yeah, and like they can come to agreement on issues of process and issues of opposition.
I think it’s much less likely that they’ll be able to do that if it’s a Coalition government.
Because, over many years I’ve seen Liberals and Greens can work together.
But they’re working together in a negative space, right?
Benita: Yeah.
Ben: That they’re working together to stop something, or they’re working together to have an inquiry. And then when they get to the inquiry, they talk about completely different things and have completely separate agendas. But they can agree, they can agree to have a talk, you know?
Benita: To have the inquiry. For sure.
Ben: And I think it’s a lot harder to do that once you’re actually in government. It might happen sometimes. I think it’s more likely to be the case actually that the Coalition does the mirror image of what we see Labor doing federally.
Where Labor goes to the Coalition and goes, Look, if you don’t work with us, we’re gonna go work with the Greens.
Jess Wilson could go to a Labor opposition, and say, if we work together, we can do this without involving One Nation. But if you won’t work with me, then I have no choice but to go to One Nation. And so I think it’s Labor that’s the alternative to One Nation, not the Greens. I think the Greens will find themselves on the outer.
Benita: Yeah, no. I can totally see that being kind of the future of the upper house under a Coalition government, yeah.
Ben: So that’s about it for this episode of the Tally Room podcast. Thank you, Benita, for joining me.
Benita: Thank you so much for having me.
Ben: Tickets have almost sold out for the first Tally Room Live podcast recording on Tuesday, December 1st in Melbourne. So we’ve added a second show at the same place on Wednesday, December 2nd at 7pm. My guest will be Todd Farrell from the University of Melbourne and yourself, Benita.
Benita: Yay. Looking forward to it.
Ben: So tickets are now on sale for that second show, so please grab them now.
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in New South Wales and Queensland. Information about this podcast is available at tallyroom.com.au and you can email questions or feedback to podcast at tallyroom.com.au. Thanks to Chris Dubrow for writing the music you hear in this episode. Once again, thanks for listening.
