Petitions FAQ

Any resident of Victoria can sign a petition. This includes people under 18 years of age.  

No, unless that person is incapable of signing for themselves. Then, you may sign on their behalf only if you have that person’s consent.  

Yes.

No.

Only Victorian residential addresses can be accepted for an e-petition. PO Box addresses are not accepted.

If the website is not able to correctly identify your address, please troubleshoot by:

• updating your browser to the latest version
• ensuring your browser location settings are enabled
• entering your address as it appears in Google Maps for example: Street Number, Street Name, Suburb, State.

Any resident of Victoria can start a petition. This includes people under 18 years of age.  

Yes.  

For paper petitions, please attach a certified English translation.  

To start an e-petition in a language other than English use the following contacts:

• For Council e-petitions, email epetitions.council@parliament.vic.gov.au or call (03) 9651 8678. 
• For Assembly e-petitions, email epetitions.assembly@parliament.vic.gov.au or call (03) 9651 8555. 

We can only accept Victorian autocompleted addresses. PO Box addresses cannot be accepted. 

If the website is not able to correctly identify your address, please try the following:

• update your browser to the latest version
• ensure your browser location settings are enabled
• enter your address as it appears in Google Maps, for example: Street Number, Street Name, Suburb, State. 

The Clerks or their offices review e-petitions to ensure they comply with Standing and Sessional Orders, which are the rules of the houses.

In the Assembly, we also check that the nominated member agrees to sponsor the e-petition.

Once approved, the e-petition will go live on the website and you will be notified via email. 

Yes.

In the Council, they will be treated as the same petition and the signatures will be tallied together if they are tabled on the same day by a member. 

In the Assembly, they will be treated as separate petitions. 

Generally, yes. 

However, in the Assembly, you cannot start a new e-petition if there is already an active e-petition on the same topic addressed to the Assembly. If you still wish to start an e-petition, you have two options. You can: 

• create a Council e-petition instead. Note that you will need to find a sponsoring member from the Council
• wait until the active petition has been tabled. Then, a new one can be started with the same topic and action. 

Yes.

No. It is your responsibility to raise awareness about your petition and collect signatures. 

A petition must have at least one signature. 

No. The Council and Assembly can only accept e-petitions started on the Parliament of Victoria website. Signatures collected from other websites such as Change.org cannot be accepted. 

Your e-petition can no longer be signed after it is closed. However, it can be viewed on the Parliament website.  

• For the Council, a sponsored e-petition can be viewed on the Parliament website until the Parliament dissolves and a general election is held. However, if an e-petition closes without being sponsored by a member, it will remain on the Parliament website for only 12 months after closing. After that, we will remove all record of the e-petition, including personal information. We will not retain this information.  
• For the Assembly, e-petitions are listed until the day they are tabled.   

In the Council, the person who started the petition can apply to change the closing date. The request must be made by emailing epetitions.council@parliament.vic.gov.au. 

In the Assembly, only the sponsoring member can request a change in the closing date. 

After closing, your petition will be tabled. This means that your petition:  

• is officially recorded by the Parliament 
• becomes part of the public record, including the details of everyone who has signed.

A copy of your petition will be sent to the relevant minister.  

For the Council, yes. Once your petition is tabled, the signature count will be recorded, and a new count started for the new signatories to your petition. Your petition will need to be closed to signatures for a period before it is tabled, while Council staff prepare it for the house. This is called progressive publishing. Contact us on epetitions.council@parliament.vic.gov.au or (03) 9651 8678 for more information. 

For the  Assembly, no. A petition closes once it is tabled. You may start a new petition with the same wording and actions. 

We expect the last day for presenting petitions in 2022 will be 15 September 2022. Therefore your e-petition must have a closing date before then.