The Legislative Council serves as a house of review, in a similar fashion to its federal counterpart, the Australian Senate.

Members of the Legislative Council were unpaid, further restricting participation of those without independent means.

[7] The Legislative Council met for the first time in November 1851 at St Patrick's Hall, which had been built in 1847 in Bourke Street, Melbourne.

James Frederick Palmer was the presiding officer of the Council, then called speaker.

[10] [11] The first Legislative Council existed for five years and was responsible for at least three significant and enduring contributions to the parliamentary system of Victoria: The new constitution was approved by the Legislative Council in March 1854 and was sent to Britain where it was passed by the United Kingdom Parliament as the Victoria Constitution Act 1855, received Royal Assent on 16 July 1855 and was proclaimed in Victoria on 23 November 1855.

[13][14] The Constitution established a Westminster-style system of responsible government that continues in Victoria today.

Until 1950, the Legislative Council was elected on a restricted property-based franchise and always had a conservative majority.

[21] This resulted in many instances of a Labor government being faced with an opposition-controlled Council – a rare occurrence elsewhere in Australia.

Since 2006, Legislative Council members have been elected using the single transferable vote system of proportional representation.

Small parties never receive this amount on the First Count in Victoria's Legislative Council elections but through the vote transfers that are part of STV, some candidates of small parties do receive vote transfers from other small-party candidates and pass quota that way.

STV thus results in an increase in the number of minor parties represented in the Legislative Council as compared to the Instant-runoff voting system.

Property qualifications for voting in the Legislative Council were abolished for the 1952 Legislative Council election, increasing the number of eligible voters from 0.5 million in 1949 to 1.4 million in 1952, and resulting in a large increase in the number of Labor MLCs.