GRN 6.9 vs ALP
Incumbent MP
Adam Bandt, since 2010.
Geography
Central Melbourne. Melbourne covers the Melbourne CBD, as well as the inner city suburbs of North Melbourne, Parkville, Carlton, Docklands, Abbotsford, Fitzroy, Ascot Vale, Richmond and East Melbourne. The seat covers a majority of the City of Melbourne and City of Yarra and a small part of the City of Stonnington.
Redistribution
Melbourne shifted south, picking up South Yarra and part of Prahran south of the Yarra from Higgins and Macnamara, and losing Clifton Hill to Cooper, and Carlton North, Fitzroy North and Princes Hill to Wills. These changes cut the Greens margin from 10.2% to 6.9%.
History
Melbourne is an original Federation seat, and was held by the ALP for over one hundred years before it was won by the Greens in 2010.
The seat was first won by Malcolm McEacharn, the former Mayor of Melbourne, who joined the Protectionist Party. Although McEacharn had defeated his Labor opponent William Maloney with over 60% of the vote in 1901, the 1903 election saw McEacharn only defeat Maloney by 77 votes, and the result was declared void after allegations that the result was tainted.
Maloney defeated McEacharn at the following by-election in 1904, and the ALP held Melbourne for the next century. Maloney polled over 60% at the 1906 election, and never polled less than 60% as he held the seat right through to 1940. Indeed, Maloney was elected unopposed at two elections. Maloney retired in 1940 but died before the 1940 election. He never held a frontbench role, and holds the record for the longest term of service without serving as a frontbencher.
The seat was won in 1940 by Arthur Calwell. Calwell held the seat for thirty-two years. He served as Minister for Immigration in Ben Chifley’s government from 1945 to 1949. He served as HV Evatt’s Deputy Leader from 1951 until 1960, when he became Leader of the Opposition.
Calwell led the ALP into three federal elections. The ALP was defeated by a slim margin at the 1961 election, but suffered a larger defeat in 1963 and a solid Liberal landslide in 1966. Calwell was replaced as Leader by Gough Whitlam in 1967 and Calwell retired in 1972. At no time did the seat of Melbourne come under any serious danger of being lost.
The seat was won in 1972 by Ted Innes, who held the seat until 1983.
He was succeeded by Gerry Hand, who served as a federal minister from 1987 until his retirement at the 1993 election.
The seat was won in 1993 by Lindsay Tanner. Tanner became a frontbencher following the defeat of the Labor government in 1996, and served on the Labor frontbench right until the election of the Rudd government, and served as Finance Minister in the first term of the Labor government.
The seat of Melbourne had been considered a safe Labor seat for over a century, but at the 2007 election the Greens overtook the Liberals on preferences and came second, and the two-candidate-preferred vote saw the ALP’s margin cut to 4.7%.
In 2010, Tanner retired, and his seat was won by the Greens’ Adam Bandt, who had first run for the seat in 2007.
Bandt was elected with the benefit of preferences from the Liberal Party, but in 2013 managed to win a second term despite the Liberal Party preferencing Labor. Despite losing these preferences, Bandt’s margin was only cut by 0.6%, and his primary vote jumped 7%. Bandt has since been re-elected in 2016, 2019 and 2022.
Bandt was elected leader of the Australian Greens in early 2020.
Assessment
The margin in Melbourne was significantly cut by the redistribution, but the Greens vote south of the Yarra was produced without the strong position of Adam Bandt personally – I expect he would pick up more support in that area, and retain his seat easily.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Adam Bandt | Greens | 47,883 | 49.6 | +1.6 | 44.7 |
| Keir Paterson | Labor | 24,155 | 25.0 | +3.9 | 25.7 |
| James Damches | Liberal | 14,660 | 15.2 | -6.0 | 19.5 |
| Colleen Bolger | Victorian Socialists | 3,156 | 3.3 | +3.0 | 2.6 |
| Richard Peppard | Liberal Democrats | 1,596 | 1.7 | +1.7 | 1.9 |
| Justin Borg | United Australia | 1,709 | 1.8 | +0.6 | 1.9 |
| Bruce Poon | Animal Justice | 1,316 | 1.4 | -0.7 | 1.4 |
| Scott Robson | Independent | 1,094 | 1.1 | +1.1 | 0.9 |
| Walter Stragan | One Nation | 937 | 1.0 | +1.0 | 0.8 |
| Others | 0.4 | ||||
| Informal | 2,993 | 3.0 | 0.0 |
2022 two-candidate-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Adam Bandt | Greens | 58,050 | 60.2 | 56.9 | |
| Keir Paterson | Labor | 38,456 | 39.8 | 43.1 |
2022 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Keir Paterson | Labor | 75,191 | 77.9 | +10.1 | 73.1 |
| James Damches | Liberal | 21,315 | 22.1 | -10.1 | 26.9 |
Booths have been divided into four areas. Fitzroy, Carlton and Abbotsford are grouped as North-East. East Melbourne and Richmond are grouped as East. Booths close to the Melbourne CBD are grouped as West. Those south of the Yarra are grouped as South-East.
The Greens topped the primary vote in all four areas, with a vote ranging from 34% in the south-east to 57.2% in the north-east.
The ALP came second, with a primary ranging from 23.2% in the north-east to 27.9% in the south-east. The Liberal Party came third, with a primary ranging from 9% in the north-east to 29.6% in the south-east.
| Voter group | GRN prim | ALP prim | LIB prim | Total votes | % of votes |
| East | 44.7 | 24.5 | 20.9 | 10,324 | 10.9 |
| North-East | 57.2 | 23.2 | 9.0 | 10,033 | 10.6 |
| West | 51.5 | 24.2 | 12.2 | 9,984 | 10.5 |
| South-East | 34.0 | 27.9 | 29.6 | 6,258 | 6.6 |
| Pre-poll | 44.0 | 26.4 | 19.8 | 35,904 | 37.8 |
| Other votes | 40.3 | 26.2 | 23.6 | 22,470 | 23.7 |
Election results in Melbourne at the 2022 federal election
Toggle between two-candidate-preferred votes (Greens vs Labor and Labor vs Liberal), two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for the Greens, Labor and the Liberal Party.
The Greens vote didn’t crash in 2022. It got shaved down due to the redistribution last year.
I don’t expect an upset loss here.
Ok yeah actually the changed 2CP opponent makes sense.
He was talking about the 12 points they lost in the 2cp in 2022. That was due to the result being vs laborinstead of vs liberal in 2019 I’d expect bandt to lose some primary due to the redistribution probably around 45% though I’d say the seat will become marginal. Green retain. I think that this could be a great v koutifedes count.
What we saw yesterday in Melbourne at the Dawn Service was disgusting. Anzac Day is not a day to protest, it is a day to respect and honour the servicemen and women who fought for this country.
Keep in mind the neo-Nazi hecklers would’ve rather supported Nazi Germany over Australia in the war, so how dare they claim to “speak for White Australians”.
Hopefully the AEC rejects any future requests for a Nazi Party to be registered for elections.
@ Nether Portal
I 100% Agree with you. The made a digustic antisemtic protest at the steps of Victorian parliament. These people are the scum of the world. I refer to neo-nazis are dung beetles as they feed on shit as well.
Still in sure some peop p e also agree Anzac day is not the place for welcome to country too
@Darth Vader April 26, 2025 at 11:11 am
Regardless of any opinions on Welcome to Country, booing at ANZAC dawn service and disrespecting those who died for our country is extremely scummy
I agree that it’s not the time for this sort of thing, but also I think ANZAC day has been made a propaganda tool for the military, unthinkingly glorifying all wars as sacrifices made so we could have freedom. My great great great uncle was at Gallipoli, and while the deaths of our soldiers are tragic, they didn’t die “defending our country”. They died in imperialist power games. The only lesson you can take away from a war in which 600,000 men would die to gain 5 miles of ground is that war is an evil thing, that should be avoided at all costs.
Today there was violence in the CBD on the issue of Trans rights. The Trans rights protests also carriered Palestinian flags and shoiyted free Plalestine
@Clarinet of Communists agree – Anzac Day should be an anti-imperialism day considering it commemorates a bunch of Australian’s being slaughtered at the whims of the Empire
@Clarinet of Communists:
Imperial Germany wanted to expand in the early 20th century, among it’s possessions were New Guinea and [German] Samoa. Holland poseessed West Papua and Indonesia, but was officially neutral in WW1.
If Australia had sat it out, Papua was gone and Germany controlled the Torres Straits. Holland may have entered the War on Germany’s side and blockaded Australia.
So, Australia has a dog in the fight. Whether Australian troops were used well, that’s different question, one that Canada also asked regarding it’s contribution in Europe.
ABC currently shows a 2CP of ALP 52% GRN 48%. There was talk on the ABC last night of Bandt losing his seat. The comment I made above might not age well. Absent and declaration pre-poll votes will favour the Greens whilst postals will favour Labor. Postals so far showing a swing to Labor that’s bigger than the ordinary voting swing.
I see the Greens as almost becoming a single-issue party. For most of the past 18 months, there was an over-focus on Palestine. A lot of their base, who looked to the Greens for their stances on public services, had moved away in my view. To Labor’s credit, they campaigned very strongly on bread and butter issues. Labor had policies like free Tafe, cut to HECS debt, Medicare and personal income tax cuts.
I never expected a red wave of this scale to be honest. I never thought Bandt had to ever sandbag his seat. If he loses, he’d be the second party leader to go this election.
Greens have become too extreme , their fixation on Gaza and the CFMEU have made them out of touch, and professional women have turned from the Greens to Labor
I’m very surprised. Labor announced their candidate quite late so expectations of victory were very low. I think he can hang on but if things worsen at this rate, he could be out in what is usually seen as a Green stronghold.
The ALP having some sensible mild left leaning policies may have stopped votes leaking to the Greens. Kind of like when the LNP are just a little bit racist to keep votes from going to One Nation
‘A lot of their base had moved away’ Currently the max primary vote swing against the Greens in these seats is ~3%, come on now. The Greens have some thinking to do for sure, but these results are more about the unusally strong Labor result than anything else.
I mentioned a while go that there were swings away from the Greens in inner-city areas at various election e.g. South Brisbane, Prahran. These might have been ominous signs. I also mentioned that since 2022, there has been the return to office (RTO) bringing in white-collar professionals and this wouldn’t help the Greens.
the greens losses seem to be due to a large number of voters switching from Lib/LNP to Labor with a smaller amount switching from Green to Labor.
I had expected the Green primary vote to increase in the Brisbane seats at least
Il be happy to see the back of bandt
How can he hold on? I can understand that the preferences are just estimates, but as they count more prepoll won’t the margin just get worse for Bandt?
I think Bandt might be in trouble because the Libs’ “put the Greens last” emphasis might give them even less of a preference flow than most of the modelling based on previous ones.
One thing that’s interesting is that the areas added to the seat from Prahran and South Yarra were expected to reduce the Labor vote and boost the Liberal vote (probably why the AEC chose a GRN v LIB count), and while the Greens’ vote held up pretty well there – some booths swung to, some away, for a pretty neutral swing overall – there was a huge LIB to ALP swing in those booths.
Which does tell me the Libs have zero chance of holding Prahran in a general election next year, but that will probably be a VERY tight race between Greens and Labor again like it was in 2018 with a close 3CP but Libs thumped on 2CP (if they even make the 2CP).
@Trent yes I’d expect preference flows would be quite a bit worse than previously, and I wonder to what extent that has been factored-in to the ABC projection.
The next census should provide interesting insight into the changing nature of inner city Melbourne. Once the home of students, young hospo and retail workers and early career professionals, the inner city has become far too expensive to rent for many of these folk – a core part of the Greens base. Most people I know in this cohort now rent in suburbs such as Sunshine, Reservoir and Coburg – and those in a position to buy have gone regional.
I think Bandt is gone based on the figures that are coming out. Labor’s blown out to a 53-47 lead on 2CP and the remaining booths to receive a 2CP count are mainly South Yarra which will skew Labor and Liberal than Green. The fact that the Richmond, Burnley, Cremorne and East Melbourne have recorded decent Labor wins on 2CP speaks volumes. Looks like the redistribution was the death knell for Bandt’s chances in Melbourne when he would’ve won easily had Carlton North and Fitzroy North were still in Melbourne rather than Wills.
Looking at the booth results here, Victoria Pde has emerged as a massive political and social divide. More so even than the Yarra. North of Victoria Pde is one of the most lefty places in Australia, while Richmond, Cremorne, Burnley, East Melbourne, South Yarra etc are more moderate, while still being progressive.
If there was a seat that went from north of Victoria Pde up to Brunswick it would be a very safe Greens seat, even in this election where the Greens have struggled.
Interestingly the Greens supported the redistribution that added South Yarra & Prahran to Melbourne.
I understand why – at the 2022 election the Greens won every booth in South Yarra & Prahran (and also still won the primary vote in all of them except one this time too) – so they would have assumed that due to the higher Liberal vote south of the river it would actually strengthen their hold on Melbourne by increasing the chance of it being GRN v LIB, while at the same time sending safe Greens booths from the north of the seat into Wills & Cooper to help their chances there.
But of course that has backfired now because the swing to Labor has kept it as a GRN v ALP contest and that higher Liberal vote south of the river is just sending 2CP preferences to Labor over the Greens, while they also just missed out on Wills.
Antony Green has said that Adam Bandt will lose here, ABC still has it in doubt but nonetheless this is a big shock.
This is a massive loss for the Greens and a complete shock as I personally didn’t see this occurring.
Huge. Is it fair to say that part of what we got so wrong here is we assumed that the areas added south of the Yarra would firm up for Bandt?
Peter Dutton isn’t the only party leader to lose his seat in this election
I think Trent is right, South of the Yarra you have a lot of Tealish moderate voters who feel that the Greens were grandstanding on housing etc so they are just blocking rather than solving problems. I think the Greens were grandstanding on the CPRS as well.
I dont know much about the Labor candidate but if she is a progressive MP then she can build a personal vote like Plibasek and will be hard to dislodge.
ABC reports that Sarah Witty is a foster parent and CEO of the Nappy Collective which provides free nappies to families in crisis
The Guardian says that Sarah Witty’s campaign was launched by Penny Wong, who’s ‘also’ in the left faction.
That suggests to me that she is a left faction candidate soon-to-be MP. I doubt her profile will be as huge as that of Albo or Plibersek but she should resonate well in Melbourne, or maybe even Wills compared to Khalil.
Still a shock victory that virtually no one saw coming until recently.
Agree Tommo and Nimalan, Sarah Witty if she is from the left faction would probably be in the mould of Ged Kearney, a low-profile backbencher who is able to win fairly comfortably on what should be hostile territory, purely by being in sync with the values and personalities of the constituents in her district.
I did say that labor could be a chance after the redistribution but did see this scale of a win I thought it would be a much narrower contest either way.
The greens will be back to contest here but with that section south of the Yarra I’d say it’s labor’s for at least the next 2 elections
@ Yon An
Labor must hope she is not a Foreign Policy Hawk or a DLP style candidate. There are some Conservative Labor MPs such as Cassandra Fernando, Raff Ciccione, Shane Nueumann but not in seats like this. Ged Kearney is a perfect example. Plibasek is too popular in Sydney
@Nimalan From what I’ve seen (admittedly not much given Labor didn’t really put much effort into Melbourne as the Greens or Liberals did) I think she’ll be alright. She seems to be more aligned to the social issues like women’s health, early childhood education etc. It seems she’ll be in a similar mould as Ged Kearney and the likes.
@ Tommo9
Provided she is Proudly Progressive that works for Labor here and she will not use words “woke” to attack her opponents. Her campaign slogan was she was a builder not a blocker that probably attracted moderate voters. Labor probably are thrilled because it much harder to get rid of a cross bench MP than a LNP MP. Libs attack line is often to scare voters about a Labor-Greens coalition that is much harder now.
Fancy that people talk about how Greens get entrenched into their seats and that they stay there for a very long time, such as the examples in NSW and Victorian state parliament, not to mention people thought that once Bandt had won it he wouldn’t lose from it.
Now Federal Labor has done it not once, not twice, but three times (Griffith, Brisbane and Melbourne) and possibly up to four times if Ryan falls.
The Greens came in with the goal of winning Wills, Macnamara, Richmond, and also take a stab at Perth and Sturt, they came back with none of them, costed their members in Griffith, Brisbane and Melbourne and possibly on track for a lower house wipeout. Disastrous.
I remember in 2022, one thing that struck me about the results in Melbourne was the double-digit swing against the Liberals in Docklands. Now it’s The Greens who have had their vote drop by double digits there.
I think 4/5 australians will be glad to see the back of Bandt
Trent, I disagree with your comment on 5th May that the Liberals have “zero chance” of retaining Prahran.
Locals happily elected a Liberal at state level while giving them a massive middle finger at federal level a couple of months later – and it’s a educated electorate – so people seem to easily be able to distinguish between the two levels of government.
Plus the dynamics of the state election will be vastly different to the federal election.
No reason that a Liberal MP who works hard and doesn’t do anything stupid, combined with the state trends, couldn’t win.
@Mark, at a federal level the Liberals didn’t really get much (if any) swing to the Libs at all. It was all Greens to Labor.
At the byelection there were just too many factors that were unique to that byelection that won’t be repeated at a state election, even Tony Lupton rattled these off in a video about why Prahran is different from Macnamara and admitted Prahran was really a one-off opportunity due to these unique factors:
– No Labor candidate (Libs got 70% of Lupton’s preferences but would have lost even with 55% of Lupton’s preferences, they won’t get anywhere near that many Labor prefs if it’s GRN v LIB again)
– Very low turnout, which based on the byelection vs 2025 vote numbers for each suburb/booth seemed to disproportionately affect the area in Port Phillip which is the Greens’ best. This makes sense because people in Port Phillip don’t associate themselves with “Prahran” so are least likely to have known they’d need to vote
– No Labor campaign attacking the Libs like there is at a general election
– No focus on party leaders or who forms government, so it was much more about local candidate vs local candidate
Any one of those factors not being present would likely have erased the Liberals’ 800 vote margin they won by, let alone all 4.
I will say that after this federal election and with the loss of incumbency for the Greens, Prahran is now going to be a very tight ALP v GRN race at the 3CP again and might be Labor’s best chance to win it back.
But, if the Liberals could only get a 36% primary vote at a byelection with no Labor candidate or focus on who forms government, the two main things are:
– How would they top that at a general election?
– Even if they match a 36-37% primary vote, where are they going to get an extra 14% in preferences when either Labor or Greens will be the party that finishes third?
Prahran will be like 2018 again. Lib vote in low to mid 30s, Labor & Greens combining for around 60%. Liberals can’t win that.
Also Rachel Westaway has completely disappeared since the byelection. Didn’t even see her helping federal candidates like Benson Saulo (who had Southwick by his side constantly).
Definitely wasn’t on my bingo card.
The rejection of the Greens, Socialists and the right-wing minor parties at this election represents a clear rejection of the extremes at both ends.
Adam Bandt has finally lost the most progressive seat in the country. Not saying he can’t gain it back but who knows? The Greens may die out soon if they keep being extreme.
@Trent I agree and if anyone other than the Greens could win Prahran next year it’s likely to be Labor than the Liberals which are tarnished goods in the inner city. Labor was the beneficiaries of the anti-Green swings in Melbourne, not the Liberals.
No except the one nation vote went up. It seems it was a rejection of bad policy
As for Prahran I wouldn’t rule out the Libs holding on but they need a strong primary vote to do so. Could be similar to the NSW and Queensland state elections (and the Brisbane City Council elections) where the Liberals held onto teal and Green areas respectively.