Labor secures easy passage with third Senate spot in Victoria

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Labor secures easy passage with third Senate spot in Victoria

The Albanese government will only need the Greens’ backing to pass legislation through the upper house after Labor clinched a third Senate spot in Victoria.

The *********** Electoral Commission (AEC) on Wednesday declared the sixth and final Senate seat in the state for Labor’s Michelle Ananda-Rajah.

A former lower house MP, she ran for the Senate after the AEC abolished her seat of Higgins.

Fellow Labor senators Raffaele Ciccone and Jess Walsh also retained their seats, as did Liberals James Paterson and Jane Hume and Green Steph Hodgins-May.

There are 76 seats in the Senate.

Wednesday’s results push Labor’s numbers up to 28, meaning Anthony Albanese can pass legislation through the upper house with support from the Greens, which hold 11 seats.

Labor’s proposed super tax will be a major test of the Prime Minister’s ability to work with the minor party.

The policy would roll back concessions for super balances north of $3m – a move that would affect half a per cent of Australians or some 80,000.

Greens leader Larissa Waters said her party would support the legislation but wanted the threshold lowered from $3m to $2m.

Camera IconPrime Minister Anthony Albanese can now pass legislation through the Senate with only the support of the Greens. NewsWire / Martin Ollman Credit: News Corp Australia

“We haven’t met again as a party room to discuss that particular issue,” Senator Waters told The *********** on Tuesday.

“And we’ll obviously wait to see what the government puts forward … and continue those discussions.

“I’m hopeful that we can see a good outcome there.”

She said her party was “prepared to consider it”.

Going into the federal election, Senator Waters’ predecessor Adam Bandt pledged to put five key demands to Mr Albanese if Labor fell short of a majority at the federal election.

They included blocking any new coal or gas projects, expanding Medicare to cover dental health, reforming negative gearing and capital gains tax, ending logging in native forests, and rolling out free universal early childhood education.

Mr Bandt was swept up in Labor’s landslide win along with Queensland one-termers Stephen Bates and Max Chandler-Mather.

Despite being reduced to just one seat in the lower house, the Greens have sought to frame the election as a win because they are “now in sole balance of power” in the Senate.

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It is unclear how the Greens will use that power, but Senator Waters called on Labor “to be bold” in her first remarks after winning the party leadership.

“The issues that people are facing are getting harder and are getting worse,” she said.

“We need strong action on the climate, on nature, on the housing crisis, on the cost of living crisis, and we need our parliament to work to actually meet the needs of the people that it’s been elected to represent.”

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