Federal election 2025: Greens close to claiming first NSW regional seat from Labor

Labor is facing a fierce challenge in the seat of Richmond, where the Greens are hoping to chalk up their first regional and lower house seat in New South Wales from a general election.

If the Greens are successful, it would make Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s fight to retain majority government on May 3 even more difficult and see the shock ousting of one of his sitting frontbenchers.

A defeat in Richmond would also raise new doubts about Mr Albanese’s claim that he will not work with the Greens to form government if voters return a hung parliament.

Labor holds Government with just three seats. It is already set to lose Aston in Melbourne back to the Liberals and likely Gilmore in southern New South Wales, but is hoping to offset those losses with gains in Queensland and possibly South Australia.

But the Greens are talking up their chances of holding onto their three lower-house seats in Queensland and possibly gaining Richmond, across the border. The electorate, which takes in Byron Bay, Ballina and the Tweed has undergone major demographic changes, essentially making it a Greens-leaning seat.

Data available on Google shows Labor has poured $40,000 into the seat in the last 30 days, a sum opposition figures said was a significant spend for a seat the government has held since 2004.

Losing Richmond, a seat that has gone under the radar so far in the federal election campaign, would be a shock upset that would halt the political career of assistant minister Justine Elliot, who was the Ageing Minister during the Rudd Labor government. It would also mark the Greens’ first lower house and regional seat won at a general election after the minor party secured such a seat via byelection in the mid-2000s.

When contacted, Ms Elliot refused to respond to The Nightly’s repeated calls and texts.

Instead her spokeswoman responded and said: “At this election, there are only a handful of seats between Government and opposition.”

While the spokeswoman repeated Labor’s false scare campaign claims about Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, neither she nor Ms Elliot directly responded to questions about whether she was facing electoral jeopardy.

By contrast, the Greens candidate, former comedian Mandy Nolan who came within 3500 votes of defeating Ms Elliot in 2022, gave a wide-ranging interview by phone.

Labor holds Richmond with a notionally safe margin of 8.2 per cent versus the National Party but after preferences at the last election, the Nationals led on 35.6 per cent, Labor was second on 33.5 and the and Greens third on 30.9 per cent.

Because the Greens finished third their preferences went to Labor and Ms Elliot retained the seat.

While Ms Nolan requires a swing of just 1.5 per cent, the nature of the three-way contest between herself, Ms Elliot, and National party candidate Kimberly Hone, means Labor only needs to finish in the top two in order to hold the seat on preferences.

Ms Nolan said her ground game had doubled from the last election, and the seat had had an influx of 8500 new and mostly first-time voters.

“That will bode well for the Greens as well,” she said.

“Because we know that younger voters do tend to vote the more progressive way or not for the major parties, so I think that’s quite a telling sign.”

The seat has been held by Labor since 2004, and before that was held by the Nationals.

“It shows that you can never take a seat for granted and that demography moves and changes over time,” Ms Nolan said.

She said that while she was feeling more confident of winning than in 2022, she was taking nothing for granted.

“We have coordinated over a thousand volunteers to be at the booths on election day, we’ve getting close to 2000 corflutes being privately hosted,” she said.

“Everything’s about double (on the last election).

“We pulled the number one in the draw on the ballot, and Labor pulled the number two.

“And I have to say, it just felt like things were aligning for us.

“And it felt like okay, maybe this is our time now, that this seat is going to change … it’s big.”

Mr Albanese has been pleading for stability and a majority result on May 3. He has become irritable when questioned about whether Labor would repeat its 2010 agreement with the Greens to form government, insisting that he will not.

But Ms Nolan said he may have no choice in the matter.

“I’m quite flabbergasted going into an election that the Prime Minister would say that,” Ms Nolan said.

“If it comes to the point where Labor has to work with the Greens, it’s not really up for Labor to decide, or him to decide or not.

“This is the will of the people who have voted.”

She also said the prospect of a Greens-backed minority government was seen as a positive by many of the Labor voters she was trying to convert.

“There are conversations I’ve had with Labor voters who see the benefit of a minority government where Greens are in balance of power with Labor,” she said.

“Because they see the Labor that they’re nostalgic for might have a chance to be restored.

“And this seat is a seat that could possibly do that.”

She listed free dental care as a non-negotiable for the Greens should they be in that balance-of-power position, something that Health Minister Mark Butler has said was too expensive to include as part of Medicare.

She said ending native forest logging and new coal and gas were also Greens demands.

When questioned about how the cost of ending new fossil fuels projects would impact the budget and the economy, she questioned the need to fund the acquisition of nuclear-powered submarines from the United States and the United Kingdom.

“One of our policies is to end AUKUS,” she said.

“There’s money in the economy, $368 billion of the AUKUS deal … it is about resetting your value of what’s core in this country.

“Aligning yourself right now to a submarine deal with America may not be.

“It feels like, when you look over at what’s happening in America, this is our moment to make change in our democracy.”

Unlike Labor, Ms Nolan said she would not engage in negative attacks on her opponents because voters were craving politics done differently.

“We’ve really worked hard to give people hope,” she said.

“I won’t play the games of the major parties that I think is disrespectful, and there’s a violence in that.

“People want to see that culture change.”

Ms Nolan said the housing crisis, combined with climate change and the increase of uninsurable housing due to flooding, and the cost-of-living crisis, had made the electorate ripe for a Greens takeover.

“We’re super climate vulnerable, that’s a big part of it,” she said.

“An incumbent of 20 years, where people have seen issues like homelessness and housing prices get worse and not better, is a big part of it.”

She said that while interested in social change, she never wanted to run for politics. That in turn made her stand out in an era of professional politicians.

“I’m someone who’s come to this community who’s dipping into the world of politics because I’m prepared to advocate, to speak up,” she said.