Adam Bandt comfortably re-elected in Melbourne but party fails to make gains in the lower house

The Greens are on track to retain all of their senators up for re-election, giving the minor party a total of nine Senate seats and a dominant role on the crossbench in the 46th parliament.

A 2.6% swing to the minor party in the Senate will likely see all six senators up for re-election returned but the Greens failed to make gains in the lower house where its vote slipped back by 0.2% to 10%.

Adam Bandt was comfortably re-elected in Melbourne but the Greens were pushed into third position in Higgins and Macnamara and fell short in Kooyong, where the barrister Julian Burnside lost to the treasurer, Josh Frydenberg.

The Greens leader, Richard Di Natale, was under pressure to maintain Senate representation and used the expectation of a change in government to urge progressive voters to elect Greens to help strengthen Labor’s climate policy.

With a Senate primary above 11% in almost every state, Larissa Waters in Queensland, Sarah Hanson-Young in South Australia, Janet Rice in Victoria, Nick McKim in Tasmania and Jordon Steele-John in Western Australia will be re-elected.

Mehreen Faruqi is also likely to be re-elected in New South Wales, improving the Greens’ standing in its traditionally weakest state by 2%.

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Di Natale said he was “incredibly proud” of the Greens’ campaign, hailing the result as “the strongest outcome for the Greens since the 2010 election”.

“I think this shows what is possible when you run a strong, clear campaign based on what you truly believe, not what you think people want to hear,” he said.

Di Natale said the Greens would “continue to stand strong against the excesses of the Morrison government in the coming parliament”.

The Greens will use their place in a Senate where the Coalition will need at least five votes on the crossbench to pass legislation to encourage a transition away from fossil fuels towards a “jobs-rich renewable energy economy that works for everyone, not just big corporations and wealthy political donors”, Di Natale said.

But while Senate success will likely stave off any lingering discontent with Di Natale’s leadership, the Greens failed to fire in lower house contests where Labor proved the bigger beneficiary of swings away from the Liberals in inner-city Melbourne contests.

In Higgins, the Greens’ Jason Ball currently sits on a primary of 22.7%, about 3% behind Labor’s Fiona McLeod, a gap too large to close even with favourable preference flows and pre-poll votes.

In Macnamara, Labor’s Josh Burns received a primary vote bump of 7% after Michael Danby’s retirement, enough to push the Greens’ Steph Hodgins May into third and use her preferences to overtake Liberal Kate Ashmoor to win the seat.

Neil Pharaoh, a former state Labor candidate for Prahran, said Burns is “an amazing candidate”, progressive including on LGBTI issues, in touch with the community, “young, energetic and charismatic”.

“I genuinely believe Michael Danby was a drag on Labor vote and has been for a number of elections,” he said.

In Kooyong, Burnside currently has a primary vote of 21.5% while Frydenberg is likely unassailable on 49%.

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In Melbourne’s north, the Greens suffered from a diversion of resources towards inner-east contests and the hangover from bullying allegations that dominated the Batman byelection.

In the seat now known as Cooper, Labor’s Ged Kearney received a 48% primary vote and 64.6% in two-party preferred terms, with a savage 13% swing against the Greens.

In Wills, the incumbent Labor MP, Peter Khalil, improved his two-party preferred vote by 3.6% against the Greens’ Adam Pulford.

In the Australian Capital Territory, the Greens are on track to capture up to 20% of the vote, winning a swing of 3.6% but still not enough to dislodge the Liberal Zed Seselja for the second Senate spot.

In the seat of Canberra the Greens candidate, Tim Hollo, improved the party’s vote by 4.8%, still finishing behind Liberal Mina Zaki and Labor’s Alicia Payne, who will claim the seat with more than 66% of the two-party preferred vote.