Some want to repeal Victoria's abortion laws. Others are fighting for voluntary euthanasia. And some are simply pushing a broader cause, from regional jobs to recreational hunting.

Whatever their policies, one thing is clear: Spring Street's sombre upper house is set to fire up, with Labor forced to navigate a maze of new crossbenchers to deliver its election commitments.

Despite winning a clear majority in the Legislative Assembly, the Andrews government secured only 13 of the 40 seats in the Legislative Council, Victoria's Senate-style house of review.

This means that to pass bills, Labor will need either the support of the Coalition, which has 16 seats, or the backing of the Greens, plus at least half of the expected six or seven new micro party MPs.

What makes the Parliament even more unpredictable is the diversity of the newcomers. In the federal Senate, most of the crossbenchers Tony Abbott must woo are broadly on the same side of the political spectrum. In the Victorian upper house - which has eight regions, each with five seats - Andrews faces a more disparate group, including several conservatives.

So who are these newcomers and what do they stand for?

One is former policeman turned IT consultant Jeff Bourman, who is on track to win a seat in Eastern Victoria for the Shooters and Fishers Party, potentially with a colleague picking up a second spot in Northern Victoria. A recreational fox and rabbit hunter, Bourman declined to comment until counting finished on Wednesday, but has told The Age previously he wanted changes to gun laws – including abolishing registration for hunting and target rifles – as well as less red tape for shooters, and no new national parks.

"Effectively, when something becomes a national park you start to lock out the users. There's no benefit to having a national park over a state park," he said last month.

In the Northern Metropolitan Region, the Sex Party's Fiona Patten is a longstanding industry lobbyist, whose progressive policies include the decriminalisation of cannabis, the expansion of sex education in schools, and voluntary euthanasia (once elected, she plans to refer a bill to the Law Reform Commission to reignite the debate).

Across town in the Western Metropolitan Region, welfare worker Rachel Carling-Jenkins, of the Democratic Labor Party, is also expected to win a seat, propped up by preferences from right-wing groups such as Rise Up and the Australian Christians. She said she wanted to introduce a private member's bill to repeal Section 8 of the Abortion Law Reform Act, which requires doctors who object to abortions to refer their patients elsewhere, and also opposed Labor's plans to wind back equal opportunity laws, which currently allow faith-based organisations to discriminate on the grounds of sexuality or religion.

And in Northern Victoria, stock feeds businessman Robert Danieli, of the Australian Country Alliance, could also pick up a seat, potentially presenting a stumbling block to Labor's planned sale of the Port of Melbourne.

"Regardless of whether it's Liberal or Labor, I'm really against the sale of public assets," he told The Sunday Age last week. "They'd have to convince me it's for the greater good of the whole of Victoria, and I find it hard to imagine they could."

Mind you, a lot can change between now and Wednesday when counting ends, with some seats too close to call and a doubling of below-the-line votes potentially tipping the balance in a number of areas.

In Western Victoria, for example, Nationals MP David O'Brien has lost his seat but it is unclear who will replace him in the fifth and final spot: St Arnaud farmer Catriona Thoolen of the Palmer United party, or Moyne Shire councillor James Purcell, a candidate for new party Vote 1 Local Jobs.

The Greens were also hoping to win up to five upper house seats, but insiders admit at least one of them, Southeast Metro, could end up falling to a second Sex Party candidate, depending on the distribution of preferences.

Nonetheless, Parliament is bracing for an interesting few years, only weeks after closing the curtain on one of the most tumultuous periods in Victorian political history: the circus surrounding ousted balance-of-power MP Geoff Shaw.

"I'm not underestimating the challenge," Andrews admitted recently. "We'll work very hard and I think I am well known in Victoria as someone who can work with people and find the common ground, and again, be focused on the outcome, not focused on the politics of these things."

The rise of the micro parties has also renewed debate about upper house reform to stop candidates being elected with such a small proportion of the primary vote.

Buoyed by the lottery of last year's federal Senate result, whereby motoring enthusiast Ricky Muir won a seat despite having only 0.51 per cent of first preferences, 21 parties registered for this year's state poll – double the number of parties registered in 2010.

But as concerns about preference "gaming" intensified, former premier Denis Napthine revealed last week that he had sought bipartisan support to reform the rules so that candidates could be elected only if they won at least 5 per cent of the vote. Andrews, however, had rejected the idea before the election.

Now faced with a wide-ranging group of crossbench MPs, some of whom secured less than 3 per cent to get there, Andrews could soon change his mind. Others, such as self-proclaimed preference whisperer Glenn Druery, hopes he doesn't.

"It makes me very angry because the system was set up by the major parties, for the major parties," said Druery, who negotiated the complex preference deals that secured Muir's success. "Now ordinary people are coming along and winning seats, so all the majors want to get together to stop and change it."