By Michael Newhouse
A NEW voting system for the Victorian upper house could take some of the shine off Labor’s traditionally strong Western vote at the state election, according to candidates and political pundits.
The changes mean that for the first time Victorians will elect members of the upper house using proportional representation – a similar system to that used to elect the Senate in federal elections – on 25 November.
The Victorian upper house is now divided into eight regions, with five MPs to be elected from each region.
The new Western Metropolitan district covers the area from Craigieburn to Werribee, and includes the suburbs of Caroline Springs, Sunshine, St Albans, Deer Park and Taylors Lakes.
According to Victoria University political expert Emeritus Professor John McLaren, the changes will make it tougher for Labor to make a clean sweep of the upper house, and could even deliver a Greens MP from the West.
Professor McLaren said that going on the last Victorian election voting patterns, Labor will most likely win three of the five seats for Western Metropolitan, while the Liberals are almost assured of winning at least one.
But candidates agree that the big battle will be for Western Metropolitan’s final seat, which will be a tussle between Labor’s Henry Barlow – who is fourth on the ticket – the Liberal’s number two candidate Stephen Reynolds and the Green’s Colleen Hartland.
Professor McLaren said it was “arithmetically possible” that a new class of well-educated, aspirational voters in areas like Williamstown and Yarraville could boost the Greens vote high enough to win a position but said it would be unlikely.
At the last election the Greens received slightly more than 10 per cent of upper house first preference votes, which the party is expected to build upon at this year’s election.
“Even though it’s going to be a hard battle, we do think that it’s winnable,” Ms Hartland told Star last week, but she said it would be hard to predict how well the Greens would do under the new system.
Pre-election polling suggests the Greens could grab the balance of power in the upper house, with analysts suggesting the party will win at least three of the 40 upper house seats.
Mr Reynolds said he was certain the Liberals would score two seats in Western Metropolitan region but said if anyone should be worried then it should be Labor, who could see the Greens steal one of the party’s safe seats.
Mr Barlow, who is number four on the Labor ticket, admitted the final spot would be a tough fight that would most likely be decided on preferences from Family First, the Democrats and independents.
“I’m not 100 per cent confident, in fact I don’t think I’m even 50 per cent confident,” Mr Barlow said.
He said he’d spoken informally with Family First candidate Ashley Alp and Democrat representatives, but could not go into specifics about preference deals.
As Star went to press parties were busy crunching numbers and talking to opponents about preference deals.
