it was positive but that: "The Liberals' preferencing to Labor means that instead of there being three Greens in the new parliament there won't be". At the 2012 Melbourne state by-election, the Greens increased their two-candidate-preferred vote from 43.8 percent to 48.5 percent. At the 2014 state election, the Victorian Greens won their first seats in the Victorian Legislative Assembly with Ellen Sandell elected in Melbourne and Sam Hibbins in Prahran. The victory in Prahran was the first time that the Greens have won a single member constituency at the state or federal level from the Liberal Party anywhere in Australia. Nina Springle and Samantha Dunn also won two extra Legislative Council Seats giving the party a total of 5 seats in the upper house. The Greens gained a third seat in the Victorian Legislative Assembly at the 2017 Northcote state by-election, which was won by Lidia Thorpe. In the 2018 state election, the Greens lost Northcote to Labor MP Kat Theophanous, but they held the seats of Melbourne and Prahran and picked up the seat of Brunswick, retaining 3 seats in the lower house. In the upper house the party suffered a near-wipeout, as its primary vote went slightly backwards and it became the victim of complex preference deals that benefited other minor parties and saw only leader Samantha Ratnam retain her seat. In the 2022 state election, the Greens retained the seats of Brunswick, Melbourne and Prahran, and gained the seat of Richmond with a 12.9% swing from Labor. Federal elections Ethicist and animal liberation activist Peter Singer was the lead candidate for the Victorian Greens during the 1996 federal election, in which the Greens polled a total of 1.90% in the House of Representatives and 2.94% in the Senate. Since then the Victorian Greens' vote has grown with 8.17% of the vote in the lower house at the 2007 federal election. David Risstrom left the MCC to contest a Victorian Senate seat in the 2004 federal election. He received 8.80% of the primary vote, but was unable to make the quota of 14.3%. Had he received a high preference from the Australian Labor Party, he would have done so, but they instead directed preferences to the Family First Party's Steve Fielding, who was elected with 1.76% of the primary vote. In 2007 Richard Di Natale ran as the lead Victorian Senate candidate and again the Greens narrowly