The past week has seen major shake-ups in Australian political parties. Larissa Waters, a Senator for Queensland, has replaced Adam Bandt as leader of the Greens in a “consensus” decision on 15th May. Meanwhile, Sussan Ley was voted in as leader of the Liberal Party (LNP) on 13th May.
Bandt conceded his seat of Melbourne on Thursday 8th May.
Waters’ contenders included Senators Mehreen Faruqi and Sarah Hanson-Young, who will go on as deputy leader and leader of business respectively.
Waters is the second longest-serving member of the Greens party, behind Hanson-Young.
According to the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC), Bandt received 40,258 votes (47.11 per cent) while his Labor competitor Sarah Witty received 45,202 votes (52.89 per cent).
On a first-party preference (FPP) Bandt had received 34,127 votes compared to Witty’s 26,814 votes. The Liberal candidate, Stephanie Hunt, received 16,576 votes on FPP.
Bandt had held the seat of Melbourne since 2010. In a concession speech on Thursday 8th he said “To win in Melbourne, we needed to overcome Liberal, Labor and One Nation combined, and it’s an Everest that we’ve climbed a few times now, but this time we fell just short.”
The AEC had introduced boundary changes in the seat of Melbourne in 2024, which was a routine and independent process to accommodate population changes.
Polling booths within the seat indicated how Bandt’s support had shifted. Fitzroy, a more progressive area, saw 780 FPP votes for Bandt compared to 432 to Witty. In the South Yarra booth, Witty received 382 FPP votes compared to 320 for Bandt.
Bandt attributed the changing margin to these redrawn boundaries, and added that the Greens campaign to “Keep Dutton Out” may have backfired and increased support for the ALP.
However, it meant that the seat absorbed South Yarra and Prahran, which have a higher Liberal vote, while losing parts of inner northern suburbs, which have a higher Greens vote.
Despite the redrawn boundaries, there was no win for Samantha Ratnam, whose seat of Wills absorbed the progressive inner northern Melbourne suburbs.
The Greens have maintained a strong presence in the Senate, with 11 seats compared to 26 and 28 to the LNP and ALP respectively.
Over in the LNP, Dutton’s early and colossal loss in Dickson has given the LNP time to find a new leader. On Tuesday 13th May, Sussan Ley was elected as the new Leader of the Opposition, making her the first woman in the party’s history to hold this position.
Ley received 29 votes to Shadow Treasurer Angus Taylor’s 25. Three of the votes for Ley were from outgoing senators whose term will end on 1st July, making Ley a notional one-vote winner.
In her first press conference, she said “I am humbled, I am honoured, and I am up for the job.”
Ley ran with Ted O’Brien as Deputy Leader.
Her seat of Farrer (NSW) was held in the federal election with 57,828 votes (56.19 per cent); a more comfortable margin than her predecessor Peter Dutton. However, she did have a 10.16 per cent swing against her compared to the 2022 election, on a two party preferred basis.
In 2022 Ley won 66,739 votes (63.35 per cent) to her Labor rival Darren Michael Cameron’s 33,843 (33.65 per cent).
Ley has refused to confirm any party policies so far, saying she “will not make any captain’s calls.”
This marks the second time in history that two of the three major Australian political parties have been led by women. The first was a short-lived crossover of Greens leader Christine Milne and ALP leader Julia Gillard in 2013.
The weeks and months to come will doubtlessly see soul-searching from both the Greens and the LNP as they come to terms with their losses. It remains to be seen whether either of their new leaders can steer their parties to victory.
