Greens leader Adam Bandt ‘paid the price for leading the Greens into the dead-end politics of division and hatred’

Outgoing Greens leader Adam Bandt has come under fire from both sides of politics and prominent Jews who say the Greens must move away from its “ignorant moralising arrogance”.

Adam Bandt has “paid the price” for the Greens stoking “division and hatred” across the country, according to leaders on both sides of politics, prominent Jews and anti-Semitism victims.

The ousted minor party leader finally conceded the long-held Greens seat of Melbourne to Labor candidate Sarah Witty on Thursday after initially refusing to accept the earlier declaration from election analysts.

Mr Bandt blamed his loss on the redistribution and traditional Greens voters switching to Labor to prevent a Dutton-led government, while thanking “everyone who had the courage to speak up against the invasion of Gaza and spoke out for peace in Palestine”.

Adam Bandt with his wife Claudia before officially conceding the seat of Melbourne on Thursday. Picture: David Crosling

Mr Bandt during his concession speech. Picture: David Crosling

The excuses prompted Peter Dutton to blast Mr Bandt for not taking responsibility for the Greens’ election defeats.

“No spin by Adam Bandt can change the reality that he, and other Green members, lost their seats because of their appalling treatment of the Jewish community,” the former opposition leader wrote on X.

“Australians were rightly disgusted at their behaviour. We were proud to preference the Greens last, helping to ensure Adam Bandt’s loss.”

Greens candidate Samantha Ratnam with Mr Bandt. Picture: Morgan Hancock

Mr Bandt has been criticised for not taking responsibility for the Greens’ election defeats. Picture: David Crosling

Jewish Labor MP Josh Burns also weighed in, saying Labor’s victory in Melbourne was a “clear repudiation of division”.

“Greens MPs were very combative, very opportunistic, and used complicated issues to divide people,” he said.

“People don’t like it.”

Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-chief executive Peter Wertheim told the Herald Sun Mr Bandt had “paid the price for leading the Greens into the dead-end politics of division and hatred”.

“Under the failed leadership of Adam Bandt and his potential successor Max Chandler-Mather, the Greens embraced ever more radical causes that were remote from the central concerns of mainstream Australians, and alien to their values,” he said.

Mr Wertheim said the electoral backlash against the Greens presented “a historic opportunity” for the minor party to change course.

“The ignorant moralising arrogance, the ludicrous oversimplification of complex issues and the ferocious demonisation of those with different views all need to stop,” he said.

Mr Bandt and the Greens faced an electoral backlash. Picture: David Crosling

Respected Melbourne Rabbi Daniel Rabin said Mr Bandt’s leadership had been a “source of deep pain” as he reflected on the former Greens leader’s response to the October 7 massacre by Hamas.

“While we were grieving 1200 lives, including babies burned, women brutalised, families hunted down, you chose that day to accuse Israel of genocide,” he said.

“While Jewish Australians felt afraid and alone, you stood silent or spoke in ways that made us feel erased.”

Maggie May, who was forced to close her Thornbury gift shop and move into Melbourne’s Jewish community due to anti-Semitic attacks, said Mr Bandt’s baiting had stoked a “culture of intolerance on the left” that had pushed people away from the Greens.

“Adam Bandt’s loss in Melbourne reflects a broader rejection of the Greens’ descent into extremism and divisive identity politics,” she said.

Ms May said the party had “failed to address the rising anti-Semitism within its ranks” and actively fostered rhetoric that had made Jewish Australians “unwelcome and unsafe”.

“Melburnians have sent a clear message: Enough is enough,” she added.

Prominent Melbourne Holocaust survivor Nina Bassat said the “lack of civility” under Mr Bandt’s leadership had hurt the “entire body politic and the entire Australian community”.

“Adam Bandt led his party in a way which diminished focus on environmental issues and instead condoned divisive and corrosive language,” she said.

Mr Bandt, who has held the seat of Melbourne since 2010, called Ms Witty to concede defeat on Thursday afternoon.

She was almost 4000 votes ahead at 3pm, leading 53-47 on a two-candidate preferred basis.

Outspoken Senator and former Green Lidia Thorpe accused voters in the seat of Melbourne of drinking the “Kool-Aid” on Labor’s scare campaign about a Dutton government.

“I thought Melbourne were a seat of progressives but obviously that has just been wound back,” Senator Thorpe said.

The minor party has lost three of its four lower house seats, but remains confident it will hold the Queensland seat of Ryan.

The remaining Greens party room will meet next week to determine who will replace Mr Bandt as leader.

James Newbury hits out at Bandt

Victorian Liberal MP James Newbury ripped into Mr Bandt following his election loss, saying he was “doing a little bit of a dance” when he found out the Greens leader had been ousted.

In a savage attack on Thursday, Shadow treasurer James Newbury said Mr Bandt had done “more to damage … social cohesion” than almost anyone else in Australia.

Mr Newbury confessed he was privately “doing a little bit of a dance”.

“I don’t think there’s going to be anything more embarrassing than me dancing on television, but in my head, I was dancing when I heard the announcement yesterday that he has lost his seat,” he said.

“I think he’s done more to damage — as a community leader — social cohesion than probably almost anyone else in this country.

“For him to be a representative in this parliament, federally, or for anybody of that nature to be in a representative position in parliament, I think, is concerning.”

Originally published as Greens leader Adam Bandt ‘paid the price for leading the Greens into the dead-end politics of division and hatred’