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Greens confident of winning Brisbane electorate

The Greens are increasingly confident of winning the electorate of Brisbane – and a fourth lower house seat – as counting continues and preferences from minor party voters flow in their favour.

By the end of counting on Friday, official results on the Australian Electoral Commission website showed Labor’s Madonna Jarrett in second place, 701 primary votes ahead of the Greens candidate, Stephen Bates.

Whichever candidate finishes second will ultimately beat the LNP’s Trevor Evans, the former MP, after preferences are fully distributed.

The final order of the candidates will depend on some prepoll and postal votes, which have yet to be counted, and preference allocations for about 6,500 voters who favoured the Animal Justice party, United Australia party, One Nation or the Liberal Democrats.

According to scrutineers, those micro-party votes are breaking comfortably in favour of the Greens.

About 66% of Animal Justice party preferences are flowing to the Greens, 19% to Labor and 14% to the LNP.

The Greens are also getting about twice the rate of preferences from One Nation and UAP voters, compared to Labor.

Based on the preference flows, the Greens expect to comfortably wipe out the current Labor lead. Sources in the Labor camp said they were still hopeful, and that the count was “definitely not over”, though optimism earlier this week appears to have faded.

Labor’s hopes rest on whether it can build a bigger first-preference lead via about 4,000 uncounted postal votes, 6,400 absentee ballots and 7,400 prepoll votes.

If the Greens win Brisbane it will add to victories in the neighbouring seats of Griffith and Ryan, credited to under-the-radar grassroots campaigns.

The party already has won three lower house seats and will likely have 12 senators in the new parliament, its largest ever representation in both houses.