Australian election news and updates recap: Adam Bandt loses Melbourne seat amid Greens wipeout

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Greens co-founder Drew Hutton has warned party “group-think” and intolerance of free speech is hampering its electoral success.

His blunt assessment comes after leader Adam Bandt lost his seat of Melbourne to Labor candidate Sarah Witty.

The Greens have now lost three of their four Lower House seats but are set to retain the balance of the power in the Senate.

“There’s a real lack of preparedness to countenance free speech in the Greens,” he told AAP.

“They’re very intolerant of anybody speaking outside of the accepted wisdom in the Greens, group-think if you like.

“That’s partly why they can’t communicate with ordinary Australians because they’re so intolerant of other opinions.”

Mr Hutton said the party had plenty of talent within its ranks and needed to drop the “moralistic tone” used in communicating with voters.

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The leader of the Greens has become the latest casualty of a shocking election result for the minor party that is set to retain just one seat in the lower house.

Adam Bandt is refusing to concede that Labor has won back his seat of Melbourne — previously a heartland seat for the major party — despite falling further behind in the count.

The ousting of Mr Bandt represents a second scalp for Labor in a landslide election victory in which it also managed to steal Peter Dutton’s Brisbane seat of Dickson. Both of Labor’s main opposition parties will now have to find new leaders.

Read Ellen Ransley and Katina Curtis’ full story

Jewish leader Alex Ryvchin has praised the defeat of Greens leader Adam Bandt, saying he led a party that had become “institutionally anti-Semitic”.

In a post on X, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-chief executive, wrote that the decision by the people of Melbourne to “purge” Adam Bandt from the federal parliament was a good thing.

“Bandt led a political party in this country to become institutionally antisemitic.

“This doesn’t mean its members, candidates and leaders merely said some antisemitic things. It means that at a time when Jews were being doxxed, threatened, boycotted and firebombed, the Greens, under Bandt’s leadership turned their influence and resources against our community and did so while leading the lie that they were progressive and anti-racist.

“Bandt’s defeat is a blow for socialism, that ideology of poverty that crushes the human spirit, and it is an even greater defeat for antisemitism, the socialism of fools.”

Labor’s Josh Wilson will hold on to his seat of Fremantle after fending off stiff competition from Climate 200-backed independent Kate Hulett.

Mr Wilson, who has held the seat since 2016, pulled ahead this afternoon as pre-poll votes were counted and the preference flows came his way.

His margin will drop from its previously safe status on 16.9 per cent to single digits.

It’s the second time Ms Hulett has come close to unseating a Labor frontbencher in a matter of months.

She ran in the State seat of Fremantle against WA minister Simone McGurk but lost it by 424 votes.

Australia is engaging with both India and Pakistan in response to recent developments in Jammu and Kashmir, a spokesperson for Foreign Minister Penny Wong has confirmed.

“We don’t want to see escalatory actions, which pose a risk to regional peace and security,” they said.

“Australians in affected areas should monitor updated Smartraveller advice.”

An urgent warning was issued earlier today for Aussies travelling in India and Pakistan.

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Sky News is now projecting Greens leader Adam Bandt will lose the seat of Melbourne to Labor’s Sarah Witty.

The broadcaster says Mr Bandt would need to win 63 per cent of the remaining postal votes to hold on to the seat, which is highly unlikely after an 8 per cent swing against him.

Ms Witty is leading the count 52.7 per cent to Bandt’s 47.3 per cent, with just under 70 per cent of the vote counted.

It caps out a dire election result for the minor party, which looks to have lost three of its four lower house seats.

The result will mean Anthony Albanese has not only won a landslide victory, he has also managed to decapitate both of Labor’s main opposition parties.

Peter Dutton told reporters at Canberra Airport he was very grateful for all the good wishes and messages of support he had received since Saturday night.

Returning to the capital to pack up his office, he said he had spoken to colleagues who had lost their seats in the electoral landslide.

“I just want to say thank you very much to all those who offered their good wishes, and there are a lot of people who’ve been very kind and generous in their remarks,” he said.

“The Liberal Party rebuilds from here, and that’s as it should be. So I wish them all the very best.”

Asked how that rebuild should happen and who should be the next leader, he said that was an issue for the remaining colleagues.

“The best model I’ve seen is where leaders, former, make a graceful exit from politics and maintain their graceful silence, so that’ll be my model,” he said.

Peter Dutton has returned to Canberra for the first time since Saturday night’s election wipe-out.

The former opposition leader flew in to Canberra Airport on a domestic Qantas flight early Wednesday afternoon.

He arrived to a small media contingency and declined to answer questions about the future of the Coalition, stating it was a matter for the party.

He also declined to reveal why he was in Canberra.

“I think the model for me will be to lead a graceful silence,” he joked.

Scott Yung, the unsuccessful Liberal candidate for the Sydney seat of Bennelong, said the party should consider how its foreign policies affected support among the 1.4 million Australians of Chinese heritage.

Mr Yung lost what was considered an ultra-marginal Liberal seat to a Labor campaign based on warnings that Chinese Australians could not trust Liberal leader Peter Dutton.

Mr Dutton’s strong condemnation of Chinese Navy military exercises in the Tasman Sea in February led opponents to accuse him of “beating the drums of war”.

A comment from Liberal senator Jane Hume that “Chinese spies” were operating in the election was also seized upon by opponents.

The Liberal Party was unable to win or hold any of the seats with high Chinese populations in Sydney or Melbourne.

Despite huge resources being allocated to his campaign, Mr Yung, a native-Chinese speaker, lost the seat to Labor MP Jerome Laxale, a former local mayor, by 9 per cent.

“There’s a lot of work that needs to be done,” Mr Yung told The Nightly. “The result speaks loudly for itself in terms of key marginal seats with high Chinese votes: Bennelong, Parramatta, Menzies and Banks.

“But there is hope. We did do well in the years of John Howard and Tony Abbott. We can win them back with a strong agenda of enterprise, education and having a balanced outlook on our take with foreign relations.”