Rightwing provocateur’s plan to register ‘Free Palestine party’ renews concern over Victoria’s voting system

A rightwing provocateur’s plan to register the “Free Palestine party” and use it to funnel votes to conservative parties in Victoria’s state election has renewed concern over the state’s voting system. Avi Yemini, a former Israeli soldier and self-styled investigative journalist who creates content for his YouTube channel, Rebel News Australia, on Tuesday announced plans to register the party, which he said would “flow our preferences on to parties that want to free Palestine from Hamas” in the November poll. He said he had been inspired by the anti-lockdown activist Monica Smit, who in February announced she would seek to register the “Save the Environment party” to influence the election result. Yemini and Smit’s plans rely on the Victoria’s upper house remaining the only house of parliament in Australia still using the group voting ticket system (GVTs) , in which voters are only able to choose one party above the line on the ballot paper. The voters’ preferences are then allocated by the party if it is knocked out during counting. The system has allowed backroom deals between parties to flourish, with some candidates getting elected with only a minuscule number of primary votes. The most prominent player is Glenn Druery, the so-called “preference whisperer”. In his video, Yemini said Smit’s party would “take voters” from the left and “redistribute their votes back to conservative parties”. …