PM criticises conduct of ousted Greens MP Max Chandler-Mather

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has blamed the Greens' mounting election losses on their blocking tactics in parliament. Several high-profile greens MPs have lost their seats, with party leader Adam Bandt projected to lose Melbourne.

Transcript

00:00I understand that Adam Bandt and the party have not yet conceded,

00:06but it looks like he will lose his seat.

00:10That is a shock.

00:12Clearly, there's been an adverse redistribution in the seat of Melbourne,

00:16but I don't think anybody expected that he would lose.

00:21And so that will prompt some soul-searching,

00:25although he has been an incredibly successful leader of the party,

00:29taking it to the highest representation in both houses it's ever had.

00:34We have to kind of preface the remarks by saying the result is not yet declared.

00:38So I think there are some seat-specific things that have happened,

00:41like apparently there's a collapse in the primary vote for the Greens

00:46in four booths that is, I'm told, that is kind of inexplicable.

00:51But also, yeah, we just have some thousands of votes yet to count.

00:58But we did have some, you know, unique factors this time, this election.

01:03We had a campaign by, you know, an astroturfing group at Vance,

01:07specifically targeted against the Greens.

01:10And I think that's undoubtedly had an impact, not just in Melbourne,

01:14but around the country,

01:15on how the party has, you know, decided its strategic and policy decisions,

01:23how the parliamentary party has performed in the last three years.

01:27And clearly some of that is controversial.

01:30And so I think that you could have seen coming some kind of backlash

01:35against some of the more extreme positions that the party has taken

01:41over the last three years and its conduct in particular

01:44in kind of holding up, you know, some of the labour policy proposals,

01:49for example, on housing.

Category

Transcript

Recommended