The 2025 election results are close to finalised. While the race for the Sydney North Shore seat of Bradfield is split by just 80 votes, and the Zoe Daniel versus Tim Wilson battle bubbles on in southeast Melbourne, the other 148 seats in the lower house have been decided.
It is clear that the Greens’ seat count has been reduced from four down to just the one – the seat of Ryan, home to the University of Queensland. The losses include party leader Adam Bandt in the seat of Melbourne.
The blow to the Greens led to jubilation among right-aligned culture warriors, like Nick Dyrenfurth of the AFR, who was keen to blame the losses on Greens’ advocacy for Palestine and trans-rights advocacy.
In fact, the causes of the Greens’ 2025 troubles are more complex.
In Griffith, the Greens’ loss had more to do with the LNP’s poor showing than Greens’ mistakes. When the Greens won the seat in 2022, they defeated the LNP thanks to Labor preferences.
In 2025, the LNP placed third on first preferences. That turned Griffith into a contest of Labor vs Greens, which Labor won based on LNP preferences.
Similarly in Brisbane, the Greens placed second in 2022 and won over the LNP (who placed first) on Labor preferences. This year, Labor placed second and won over the LNP (again first) on Greens’ preferences.
Essentially, the reward in these three-way races goes to the centre. Both Greens and the LNP prefer Labor to each other.
This is not the way it always was. Liberal voters, especially in metropolitan areas, once voted “green” on environmental and social issues over Labor. Under Bob Brown, the Greens had a more purely “green” image, while the ALP was associated with the hardline unionism of previous decades in older voters’ minds.
In 2010, 80% of Liberal preferences went to the Greens in the electorate of Melbourne. This is how Adam Bandt was first elected.
Between 2010 and 2013, the Liberals’ attitude changed. Arguably due to the retirement of Bob Brown and the Greens’ role in the 2010 minority government, the Liberal Party switched tack and its how-to-vote card recommended backing Labor in 2013. Just one-third of Liberal voters preferenced the Greens in 2013.
The Greens often campaign like a protest party, with policies that seem to be a calculated degree more radical than Labor’s. While Australia’s preferential voting system gives space to minor parties, it also rewards what voters perceive to be the least-bad option.
This election, the ALP’s two-party-preferred vote of 54.5% is 21 percentage points higher than its primary vote. This is the largest preference win of any Australian political party in our history.
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