The shocked faces at a morose Labor after-party told the story as clearly as the Victorian Electoral Commission website. The swing to Thorpe, as at 9.15pm, of 13.7 per cent, was twice as much as she needed to defeat Labor's Clare Burns.

Nobody wrote Thorpe off in the lead-up to this poll, but the best hope that most gave her, after an underwhelming campaign, was a narrow victory. She romped home.

After Labor threw everything it's got at Northcote, spending $500,000, deploying overwhelming ground forces, announcing a string of left-leaning policies in a bid to hold onto the seat, Thorpe romped home.

The Greens now look very hard to beat in Labor's other inner-city seats, Richmond and Brunswick, when the state goes to the polls in 12 months. The ALP still has no answer to the seemingly never-ending surge of the Greens "brand" in the inner city.

The result is very damaging to Daniel Andrews' government. Governing in its own right after next November now looks an unlikely prospect. It has been reduced to a parliamentary majority of just one. And if Jane Garrett remains unwell and absent from parliament, Andrews won't even have that.