Australia is only 828 votes away from a minority parliament, new analysis reveals, as the Greens announced their goal for the next election was to secure balance of power in both houses of Parliament.
Revealing a shortlist of nine Lower House seats from which the Greens will choose their priority seats at the election the party considers likely to be held in November this year, Leader Adam Bandt said the Greens were on the verge of making history by electing the largest Greens Party Room ever and being in either sole or shared balance of power in both houses.
This approach has recently been endorsed by the party’s National Council.
Greens target seats
The Greens are aiming to gain an additional 3 Senate seats (NSW, Qld and SA), which would grow the party to 12 Senators, making it the largest third party ever in the Senate. This could deliver the Greens Senate balance of power in their own right, depending on how well Labor performs.
In the lower house, the nine seats on the Greens’ shortlist are Richmond, Griffith, Ryan, Brisbane, Higgins, Kooyong, Macnamara, Wills and Canberra. Five are held by Labor and four held by the Liberals. Two of the Labor seats (Macnamara, Richmond) are three-cornered contests where the Coalition may also win. Further details about these seats are set out below.
The seats require as little as 2.91% swing to the Greens for the Greens to win. Historically, by focusing on a small number of federal lower house seats, the Greens have been able to achieve swings of 7% or more in a single seat every campaign since 2010.