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Greens make history by trouncing Labor to claim Northcote in Victorian by-election

The Greens' Lidia Thorpe celebrates after ousting Labor from the seat of Northcote.

The Greens' Lidia Thorpe celebrates after ousting Labor from the seat of Northcote. AAP

The Victorian Greens have claimed a shock victory in the Northcote by-election following a large swing against the Labor government.

Lidia Thorpe is the first woman to be elected to state parliament after a more than 10 per cent swing against Labor in the inner-Melbourne seat on Saturday night.

“We said we’d make history, and we did,” Ms Thorpe told jubilant supporters.

“To be the first Aboriginal woman in the Victorian parliament … I feel so privileged and honoured to have made that, made that history.”

The shock win follows predictions of a narrow Labor win, with the party throwing money and resources at a housing affordability and rental reform-centric campaign.

Federal Greens Leader Richard Di Natale says his party’s win shows voters have had enough of the two major parties and their ties with big business.

“What you have got is people in Northcote who have said ‘we have had enough of the two old parties, we don’t like the fact they are two parties who are being bought by big business … we support a party that stands strongly with the community’,” Senator Di Natale told ABC radio on Sunday.

Victorian Greens said their Northcote victory had been a long time coming.

“This is a culmination of years of work,” state leader Samantha Ratnam told AAP.

“A lot of people, they’ve said to us they feel like the other parties have left them.”

The by-election was triggered by the sudden death from cancer in August of Labor’s Fiona Richardson. She won the seat in 2006

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