Don’t look down on the Upper House

Victorian voters have started numbering the boxes to determine who will run the state for the next four years.

There are 88 seats to be won in the Legislative Assembly, the ‘Lower House’. 45 will get you government.

Today, I urge Victorians to look back and think forward.

Over the past four years, the Andrews government has increasingly ruled by fear, belligerence, and diversion. It has broken the Victorian state into tribes.

Among them are the Believers and Non-Believers. The Believers religiously credit the Premier as their Covid saviour. The Non-Believers personally know the devastation he has wrought.

There are the Vaccinated and Unvaccinated.

This has been the most divisive government known in this nation – crowned globally for hosting the longest, toughest, and cruellest lockdowns.

It has raked up a state debt greater than the combined financial woes of New South Wales, Queensland, and Tasmania.

It is a government whose ruling Labor Party is in administration – wracked by branch stacking and corruption allegations.

The party fears its own leader, a man who shamelessly croons to the cameras where others would hide with embarrassment. It’s unlikely any other Premier would fail to resign in the face of an Inquiry where the limp answer to the most critical question asked was, ‘I don’t recall.’ There are 801 Victorian families who remember.

But as the Victorian Ombudsman described, Daniel Andrews’ government is one of ‘rampant nepotism’. Few have dared stand up to the man who stands between them and the platform to board the bureaucratic gravy train.

It is a government whose application of the rules surrounding the Covid lockdown of borders was described by the Victorian Ombudsman as ‘inhumane’ and ‘unjust’ and whose inflexible approach resulted in ‘…some of the most questionable decisions I have seen in my over seven years as Ombudsman’.

Not a squeak of dissent about the Pandemic Bill was heard from Labor MPs who enabled the rules that would lock children from playgrounds, school, and kinder: the stuff they now pretend to care about on the eve of an election.

In the Upper House, this kind of legislation was passed thanks to the crossbench. Fiona Patten, the Greens’ Samantha Ratnam, and the Animal Justice Party’s Andy Meddick. These three amigos are to blame for so many of the appalling rules that have hurt people’s lives over the last few years.

The Transport Matters MP, Rod Barton, was also a significant genie in the Labor bottle.

It is these Upper House ‘independent’ members who have allowed some of the most destructive legislation to pass the Victorian Parliament, including signing off on the Pandemic Bill.

In fact, they signed off on nearly everything. They allowed every single piece of controversial legislation and every ministerial order to pass.

No government legislation was defeated.

Only on the odd occasion, when the government had fuller support across the chamber on less controversial matters, did the independents now-and-then vote against the government, knowing their vote wouldn’t change the outcome.

Voters may decide that independents or minor parties will get their approval.

In a democracy, that is indeed their celebrated choice.

But doing so will be like loading a gun with political bullets and firing randomly into the dark – not knowing where those bullets will land, or what damage they will do, despite their pre-election promises.

In the case of Andy Meddick, his support chauffeured a government that will hand Victorians energy bills that are 56 per cent higher next year, and 50 per cent higher again the year after. He is also hell-bent on destroying the agricultural animal industry for which, ironically, his electorate is famous. Western Victoria feeds and clothes the nation and export markets.

The Victorian Upper House has shown the capacity it has to change and dominate lives – at a time when no one really appreciated the power that state governments had.

The Upper House is where the government’s hopes and desires are signed off.

40 MPs sit in the Upper House – Labor currently holds 18 seats – not the majority 21 required to pass legislation without doubt.

The past four years have shown the brute power of the minor parties and independents over Victorian’s lives.

We live in a state of 6.5 million people.

Yet Andy Meddick claimed a seat in Western Victoria Region with just 2.47 per cent of the vote. It equated to 12,476 votes.

Elsewhere, Fiona Patten only attracted 1.37 per cent to take her spot with 14,875 votes.

Rod Barton did even less to be elected, with just 0.62 per cent of the vote. It equated to 2,508 votes.

Ponder this: with just 2,508 votes, Barton held the balance of power and effective control over the lives of 6.5 million people.

This is a lot of power in very few hands, garnered by very few votes.

But this year, more than any year before, I urge voters to seriously think about the impact the Upper House of Victoria’s Parliament has had on their lives and will have on their lives.

It should be a house of challenge and review, not a place for back scratching or promises for a political after-life.

Bev McArthur is Liberal Member for Western Victoria and Shadow Assistant Minister for Scrutiny of Government.