Adam Bandt says voters sent a clear message about climate
Teal independents may have hamstrung the Greens in the polls, but Melbourne MP Adam Bandt says the results send a very clear message to Anthony Albanese’s new government.
Analysis
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The Greens were on track to triple or even quadruple their representation in the lower house as counting continued last night.
But the presence of Climate 200-backed independents was holding the party’s vote back to single digits in seats where they would otherwise have been expected to poll strongly.
Greens leader Adam Bandt was expected to easily retain the seat of Melbourne, with a massive 75 per cent of the two-party-preferred vote.
Meanwhile Max Chandler-Mather was leading the count in Kevin Rudd’s former seat of Griffith, with 35 per cent of the primary vote, and Mandy Nolan was in front in the NSW seat of Richmond, where she had more than 29 per cent of the vote.
Greens candidates were also performing strongly in Ryan and Brisbane in Queensland and Macnamara in Victoria; those seats could also eventually be won by the Greens on Labor preferences, although the party usually performs poorly on postal votes.
Mr Bandt said voters were sending a clear message they wanted action on climate change.
“We’ve just had three years of droughts and then fires and now floods and floods again. People can see that this is happening and it is unfolding, and I think increasingly what we are seeing is that cuts across all voting situations, cuts across all demographics.
“People know it’s happening and they want action on it,” Mr Bandt said.
With no high profile independents beating the drum on climate in the Sunshine State, the Greens performed strongly in a number of LNP-held seats, with nearly 20 per cent of primary votes in Bonner.
Mr Bandt said he was “pleased and excited to see the results coming in for some of those Independents” but the key to the party’s success in Queensland was “people power”. With the Greens on track to win at least three seats, and the Climate 200 independents looking set to pick up a handful of their own, the “climate change election” that has been long promised, may finally have arrived.
Climate Council CEO Amanda McKenzie said climate action was “the winner of this election”.
“Millions of Australians have put climate first. Now, it’s time for a radical reset on how this great nation of ours acts upon the climate challenge,” she said.
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