When Tony Abbott made the ''captain's call'' to put the Greens last in Liberal preference flows, many people thought he had sounded the death knell for the Greens' chances of ever again holding a seat in the lower house.

But at Adam Bandt's election-night party in a West Melbourne warehouse on Saturday, a different story unfolded.

Greens Leader Christine Milne with Adam Bandt, member for Melbourne. Credit:Arsineh Houspian

About 8.15pm the crowd was politely instructed by Bandt's media man, Damien Lawson, to keep quiet because the candidate was about to do a live cross to ABC television. Some of us standing close to Bandt were asked to stand back because they only wanted people wearing green T-shirts in the shot. This was typical of the nuanced, tightly managed campaign his team had run - and it all seemed to have paid off. When the ABC called the seat for Bandt a few minutes later, there was no stopping the crowd from screaming in jubilation.

How did he do it? Bandt's campaign played directly to Tony Abbott and Kevin Rudd's weaknesses among progressive voters. As the ALP shifted to the right on issues including refugees, university funding and economic vision, the Greens kept their messages simple and clean: ''Standing up for what matters'', including a fair go for refugees, clean energy, marriage equality and workers' rights.