How They Voted

Arguably, the four most important votes for action on the climate emergency in the last Victorian parliament can be found in columns 1,4,6 and 7 in the table below.
The vote of Upper House legislators whose party has a libetarian bias have in some cases been assessed as a positive climate vote (green). Nevertheless, their choice was probably largely based on fear of government over reach rather than support for climate action. (Three examples in column 2 re the EV tax) The table assesses minor and micro parties, and independents for positive action on climate.
C= Legislative Council
A= Legislative Assembly

Green boxes indicate a vote for climate action. Red boxes indicates a vote against climate action. White boxes indicate the member did not vote perhaps because of absence. In the case of Cupper and Sheed (members of the House of Assembly) they didn’t have the opportunity to vote on 4,5,&7 because they were defeated in the Legislative Council. The last column is an assessment of the legislator or party’s voting pattern across all the bills listed. Reason was ranked yellow because Fiona Patten voted against climate action in three out of seven ocassions…not enough times against for red but also not enough times positive to be ranked green.

Probably one of the most disappointing vote counts in the above table is in column six. This legislation lifted the moritorium on drilling for gas. Also only two legislators (Samantha Ratnam and Andy Meddick) voted to support the Greens amendment to change the renewables target to 100% by 2030 (column 7). In the lower house it was Ali Cupper and Tim Read. We can wonder who will eventually turn out to be on the right side of history.

This voting record is particulary relevant to the assessment we make of the micro parties and independents. How they voted is less significant for the assessment of the major parties. In line with Australia’s two-party preferred system generally we are forced to choose one ahead of the other. For this election, in the House of Assembly, Labor is orange and the Liberals are normally red.