Subhead:A bold tactical play is underway to navigate, and benefit from, Victoria’s complex voting rules.#
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I spoke with Monica Smit as a new push emerges to harness Victoria’s controversial voting system ahead of the next state election, a strategy that could reshape the balance of power.
Following a strong conservative showing in South Australia and rising national support for Pauline Hanson’s One Nation, organisers are now turning their focus to Victoria’s unique group voting ticket system. Unlike other states, voters only mark a single “1” above the line, leaving parties to decide how preferences flow.
“It is the only state in Australia where you only put a one next to the party that you like and you do not control the rest of your preferences at all,” Smit told me. “A lot of people are uneducated about this so they don’t know.”
Critics have long argued the system is vulnerable to manipulation. The so-called “preference whisperer” Glenn Druery has openly described his influence over preference deals, boasting in past footage: “What I’ve been doing to One Nation … is my hand on their electoral throat, squeezing the preferential life out of them.”
