Greens claim victory in Brisbane seat of Ryan

The Greens have claimed victory in the Brisbane electorate of Ryan, the minor party’s sole remaining lower house seat after the May 3 election wipe-out.

Senator Penny Allman-Payne (left), Ryan MP Elizabeth Watson-Brown and senator Larissa Waters (right), as the Greens claimed victory in Ryan on Tuesday. Picture: Dan Peled/NewsWire

You can now listen to The Australian's articles. Give us your feedback.

You can now listen to The Australian's articles.

The Greens have claimed victory in the Brisbane electorate of Ryan, the minor party’s sole remaining lower house seat after the May 3 election wipe-out.

Former architect Elizabeth Watson-Brown on Tuesday told her constituents in Brisbane’s leafy inner-west that her win was a rejection of former Coalition leader Peter Dutton’s “Trump-style politics” and promised to “hold this next Labor government to account”.

Ms Watson-Brown – who first won the seat from the Liberal National Party in 2022 – secured 53 per cent of the two-party preferred vote against the LNP’s candidate Maggie Forrest’s 47 per cent, representing a 0.48 per cent swing towards the Greens.

But the result was narrower than expected between Labor and the Greens, with the two progressive parties fighting to come second in the primary vote stakes.

In the end, Labor’s Rebecca Hack – a former school principal – took 28.21 per cent of the primary vote, a 6 per cent swing to Labor. Ms Watson-Brown narrowly beat her by 720 votes, securing 28.92 per cent, meaning Labor’s preferences helped her win.

Ms Forrest – a barrister – won 34.69 per cent of the primary vote.

Candidates for Ryan Elizabeth Watson-Brown (the Greens), Rebecca Hack (Labor) and Maggie Forrest (the Liberal National Party) before the May 3 election. Picture: David Clark

In a statement on social media, Ms Hack thanked her opponents for their respect “whenever we crossed paths over the last 10 months”.

She said the result for Labor in the seat was much closer than anyone expected.

“At the start, no one really thought we were in the running but we set out to prove them wrong … and we took this seat down to the wire.”

Before the election, the Greens held four lower house seats: leader Adam Bandt’s seat of Melbourne, Ms Watson-Brown’s Ryan, and two other Brisbane electorates held by Max Chandler-Mather (Griffith) and Stephen Bates (Brisbane).

All of the Greens seats apart from Ryan fell to Labor, as part of the swing that secured Prime Minister Anthony Albanese an increased majority and a second term in government.

In Queensland, counting is continuing in the LNP-held seat of Longman, which takes in the working class suburbs between Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast.

Sitting MP Terry Young is 162 votes ahead of Labor’s candidate Rhiannyn Douglas, on a two-party preferred basis, and there are between 4000 and 5000 votes yet to count.

Both parties acknowledge the seat is too close to call.