The leader of Australia’s third-largest political party, the Greens, has conceded his seat in Melbourne after a tight electoral vote count that lasted several days.

Adam Bandt, who had safely held the seat of Melbourne since 2010, told reporters on Thursday afternoon that he had called Labor candidate Sarah Witty to congratulate her on her victory.

Australia’s centre-left Labor party won Saturday’s federal election by a landslide, decimating the conservative Liberal-National Coalition while also gutting the left-leaning Greens.

While the Greens got the highest vote in Melbourne, Bandt said the main reason for their loss was the preference votes for Liberal and the far-right One Nation party.

Australia uses a preferential voting system, where candidates are ranked in order of preference.

If no candidate wins more than 50% of the vote in the first tally, the votes from the least popular candidates are redistributed, and that process is repeated until someone secures a majority.

“To win in Melbourne we needed to overcome Liberal, Labor and One Nation combined, and it’s an Everest we’ve climbed a few times now, but this time we fell just short,” Bandt said.

“We came very close,” he added, “but we couldn’t quite get there.”

Bandt also cited the so-called Trump effect as a “key defining feature of the election” – the Coalition’s PM candidate Peter Dutton was often compared to the US President, which he rejected but it stuck.

Bandt said that contributed to a five-week “riptide” that saw votes swing away from Liberal and Dutton, and towards Labor.

This same effect also pulled votes away from the Greens, he added: “The riptide from Liberal to Labor had an effect on us as well.”

“People in Melbourne hate Peter Dutton, and with very good reason. They’ve seen his brand of toxic racism for many years… and like me, many wanted him as far away from power as possible.

“My initial take is some votes leaked away from us, as people saw Labor as the best option to stop Dutton.”

Like Bandt, Dutton also lost his seat in the election, adding to his resounding defeat at the polls by incumbent Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.

Bandt, who has been leader of the Greens since 2020, said he wanted to thank the Melbourne community for “regularly giving me the highest vote, including this election, and to thank you for the last 15 years and the chance to do some amazing things together”.

He listed off a string of achievements by the Greens under his leadership, including the party’s pivotal role in the marriage equality plebiscite, the First Nations Voice to Parliament referendum, and advancing “world-leading climate legislation”.

“Fighting the climate crisis is the reason I got into politics, and I want to thank everyone in Melbourne for helping us make a difference,” Bandt said.

He also thanked his party colleagues, noting that he leaves the party with “the vote for the Greens higher than when i started, and our biggest ever representation in parliament”.

Bandt thanked the African and Muslim communities in Melbourne, as well as “everyone that had the courage to speak up against the invasion of Gaza, and spoke up for peace in Palestine”.

Finally, he thanked his wife, Claudia.

“Not only could I have not done this without her, we’ve done it together,” he said.

In his closing remarks, Bandt offered some “free advice to the media”.

“We’re in a climate crisis,” he said. “I really want the media to stop reporting on climate as a political issue, and start thinking of it as if our country were being invaded. We should treat the climate crisis as if there was a war on.”

“Please, please start taking the climate crisis seriously, and holding this government and any future government to account.”