Greens lose two MPs, give up gains made at 2022 election

The Greens are reeling after their third successive election drubbing, undermining the beachhead in Queensland secured by the minority party in 2022.

Defeated Greens MP Max Chandler-Mather door knocking in the electorate of Griffith during the election campaign. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen

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The Australian Greens have lost an emerging star with the defeat of housing spokesman Max Chandler-Mather in his Brisbane seat of Griffith, capping a disastrous election for the minority party.

A second Brisbane-based MP, Stephen Bates, also went down to Labor, while Greens leader Adam Bandt suffered a scare in the seat of Melbourne that he has held since 2010.

While the Greens are set to regain the balance of power in the Senate, the defeat of Mr ­Chandler-Mather and Mr Bates undermines the beachhead they established in Queensland at the 2022 federal poll and will raise further doubt about the direction of the party.

The Greens also lost one of their two state MPs in Brisbane at last October’s state election and were defeated in February at a by-election in the state seat of Prahran in Melbourne.

Max Chandler-Mather on the hustings. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen/The Australian

For Labor, the victory in inner-city Griffith was especially sweet.

Mr Chandler-Mather, 33, won there last time at the expense of front­bencher Terri Butler, who had succeeded former prime minister Kevin Rudd in the seat.

As the Greens’ housing spokesman, Mr Chandler-Mather went on to antagonise Anthony Albanese, the pair clashing heatedly on a number of occasions in parliament.

In a concession speech, Mr Chandler-Mather acknowledged that the Greens had suffered a “setback” at the general election.

After telephoning Labor’s Renee Coffey to congratulate her on winning Griffith, he said: “What we are trying to do is fundamentally transform Australian politics, economy and society in favour of ordinary working ­people. That sort of project is going to have more setbacks than it has victories because the forces that we are coming up against are enormously powerful.”

Ironically, the Greens appear to have been collateral casualties of the slump in the Coalition vote under Peter Dutton.

In both Griffith and the seat of Brisbane, the roughly 5 per cent in support shed by the blue team went across to Labor, catapulting it into a winning position. This was compounded by the Liberal Party’s decision, backed by the Coalition’s state standard-bearer, the LNP, to direct preferences to Labor over the Greens.

The ALP also poured resources into the campaigns of Ms ­Coffey, the boss of a national youth mental health charity who contends with the auto-immune disease multiple sclerosis, and of businesswoman Madonna Jarrett in Brisbane, who ran unsuccessfully in 2022.

Renee Coffey on the campaign trail in Griffith, Kevin Rudd’s former southside seat in Brisbane. Picture: Scott Powick

Ms Coffey on Sunday said she had personally doorknocked 15,000 homes in Griffith.

“That’s through a pretty brutal Queensland summer with a lot of really rainy, torrential days,” she said.

Ms Jarrett said she had spoken to voters “endlessly” about healthcare and climate change: “The community understands that Labor is in power and that Labor is capable of delivering.”

Second time lucky: a jubilant Madonna Jarrett on Sunday. Picture: Lachie Millard

In his seat of Melbourne, Mr Bandt experienced a drop in his primary vote of nearly 3 per cent, opening the door to Labor’s Sarah Witty.

He was narrowly leading the count late on Sunday.

Despite registering a slight fall in the party’s national vote – down 0.28 per cent to 11.97 per cent – Mr Bandt insisted the Greens had succeeded in their goal to “have kept Dutton out” of power.

He said: “We may see the situation where some Labor members are elected on Liberal preferences.”

The Greens, however, took solace from the return of the third of their 2022 winners in Brisbane, Elizabeth Watson-Brown, in her seat of Ryan in the city’s inner west.

This was formerly an LNP stronghold.

The Greens’ former state leader in Victoria, Samantha Ratnam, was mounting a strong challenge to Labor’s Peter Khalil in the inner-north Melbourne seat of Wills once held by the late Bob Hawke.

With 70 per cent of the vote counted, Mr Khalil was clinging to a lead of just over 1100 votes, on the back of a dip of 1.1 per cent in his primary vote.

Mr Chandler-Mather’s loss will be keenly felt by the Greens after his eye-catching performances in parliament and with the media clearly needled the Prime Minister.

Mr Albanese made repeated forays into Griffith during the campaign, attacking the young MP for “personally” delaying Labor’s housing initiatives including investments in the Housing Australia Future Fund and the Help to Buy Scheme.

In a social media post, Mr Bandt said no other first-term MP had had such an impact.

Mr Bates, he said, had been an “incredible voice” for his elect­orate after making the transition from retail work to federal parliament.

Stephen Bates on polling day in the seat of Brisbane. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen