The Greens lose ground, and star MP Max Chandler-Mather

On a night Labor won a resounding, deafening victory — one that in two-party-preferred terms, at the time of writing, has not been seen since the Dismissal — it was one of mixed feelings for the Greens.

At the Greens’ Victorian election night function, held at Hightail Bar in Docklands, the mood was initially jubilant. Historically high pre-poll numbers meant that results came thick and fast, and rumblings of Peter Dutton possibly losing his seat (becoming the first opposition leader since Federation to do so) were starting to reverberate.

But as counting continued, it became clear that while Labor would romp home to government and hand leader Anthony Albanese a place in the pantheon of great Labor prime ministers, the Greens’ key seats were falling off — hard.

Rising star Max Chandler-Mather, the party’s housing spokesperson, lost his seat of Griffith after the Liberal-National Party slipped to third place on primary votes (a trend reflected around the country to the tune of 4%), handing victory on preferences to Labor’s Renee Coffey.

Elsewhere, the same story saw Stephen Bates lose his seat of Brisbane, the party fall away in Macnamara, make no ground in Richmond, and fall backwards in Cooper.

Federal party leader Adam Bandt sat briefly on a knife’s edge from losing his seat in Melbourne — a previously safe Greens seat he held on a 6.5% margin — but looks set to retain it on a significantly slimmer margin, courtesy of a redistribution which pushed much of Melbourne’s progressive areas into the neighbouring seat of Wills.

Subsequently, Wills, for many years a target seat for the Greens in Melbourne’s progressive inner-north, sits at the time of writing inside 1,000 votes, with 69.4% of the vote counted thus far. Former state leader Samantha Ratnam remains a real chance of wresting the seat from Labor incumbent Peter Khalil. The Queensland seat of Ryan, held by Green Elizabeth Watson-Brown, also remains too close to call.

The issue of the Greens’ primary vote will present serious challenges to party leadership, whose mood shifted rapidly in Docklands as it became apparent that they could potentially walk away from the election having lost all four of their lower house seats.

Getting answers from the Greens was a challenge — Crikey attempted to organise interviews throughout polling day with senior MPs, including leader Adam Bandt, to no avail, and later in the night, following news of the drop-off in seats, Greens MPs became increasingly difficult to speak to. The issue of media access to Greens leadership was not an uncommon one across different media organisations, and one that also traversed state lines.

Crikey asked Bandt’s office what needed to change about the party’s pitch to voters to secure more sustainable primary numbers, noting that in many key races the Greens hadn’t benefited from the anti-Dutton sentiment that appeared to have driven strong Labor primaries.

Bandt’s office declined to respond on the record, directing us instead to a media release put out just after midnight that described the Greens’ vote as the highest in history, and notes that the party will retain the balance of power in the Senate.

One party source speaking to Crikey described the campaign as “disjointed”. Pointing to the result in Griffith, after what was hailed in 2022 as a watershed result for the party in the House in Queensland, they said it was more representative of a strong local effort, rather than a national effort. Another candidate said that the party’s preparations in Victoria had been haphazard.

It’s too early to answer many of these questions, given the tight nature of the remaining races. What’s clear is that the Greens have found themselves failing to capitalise on a historic wave of anti-conservative sentiment by many of their own key metrics, and are now set to spend the next three years limited to negotiation in the Senate after making significant gains in the House of Representatives in 2022.

If you don’t already vote for them, what could the Greens do to secure your vote?

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