What gains has the freedom movement made politically in 2022?

For the approaching November Victorian election, new political parties intent on limiting government intrusion into our daily lives and businesses were formed, such as the Freedom Party, the Victorians party, and Restore Democracy Sack Dan Andrews party, while others such as the DLP and Family First were rejuvenated. The main strategy for these minor parties was to focus on winning upper house seats. While acknowledging that it would be starkly impossible for any of the smaller parties to win government in the lower house, aiming to win enough seats to gain the balance of power in the upper house could be more feasible, and a way of countering the totalitarian impulses or excesses of any power-crazed Premier.

However, the issue of sharing preference votes became a heated controversy amongst these smaller parties, despite their philosophical similarities. Victoria's GVT preferencing system for one-above-the-line votes enables parties to make strict and advantageous deals with other parties. In his consultative role, the 'preference whisperer' Glenn Druery was seen to be overseeing a syndicate of smaller parties, assisting them in making preference deals amongst each other.

However during the COVID period, while some of these smaller parties that were aligned with Druery had voted consistently against lockdowns, such as the LDP and Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party, others in Druery's group had supported Andrews' emergency powers extensions, such as Animal Justice Party and Transport Matters Party. Therefore, some 'freedom' parties outside of the syndicate saw these preference deals as collusion with the enemy and betrayal. Whereas the 'freedom' parties within the syndicate saw this strategy as a necessary tactic in combatting major party dominance.

The outcome from the Victorian state election

I find it useful here to focus on the results of upper house voting alone as giving the best representation of voter intensions. For every Victorian has the opportunity to select from all of the parties in upper house voting, whereas the smaller parties often did not field candidates in every lower house district. Also, the upper house is more likely to give a more proportional representation of seats won compared to a percentage of first-preference votes.

Here are the resultsfor the 2022 Victorian Legislative Council (the upper house), totalling 40 seats, showing a percentage of votes each party received across the state, and the number of seats won.

(The percentage figures below have been rounded for the sake of simplicity.)

Labor: 33% of the vote, 15 seats

Liberal/National: 30% of the vote, 14 seats

Freedom friendly: 15% of the vote, 4 seats

I have grouped these eight parties together, loosely defined as the 'freedom friendly' parties. Included in this grouping are: Labour DLP 3.5%, Liberal Democrats 2.5%, Shooters & Fishers 2%, One Nation 2% (each winning one seat,) Family First 2%, Freedom Party 1%, Sack Dan Andrews 1%, & UAP 1%.

The Greens: 10% of the vote, 4 seats

Legalise Cannabis: 4% of the vote, 2 seats