On the crowded footpath outside the Salvation Army pre-poll station on High Street, Thornbury, an elderly couple walk slowly through the press of cameras.
They bump past Greens leader Richard Di Natale, who is taking a selfie. It is just over 30 hours until the polls for the Batman byelection close – at 6pm Saturday – and the campaigns of Greens candidate Alex Bhathal and Labor candidate Ged Kearney have reached fever pitch.
The Greens have summoned the press to this polling station but will soon decamp over the road to hold a press conference, because, says Bhathal, “no one will come in and vote” if they have to run the gauntlet first.
The pre-poll stations opened on 27 February and as of Friday, 12,800 people — about 12% of the 108,000 people enrolled in the electorate — had cast their vote.
Over 12, 800 people have now cast an early vote in the #Batman by-election. Early voting closes at 6pm local time tonight! https://t.co/ySq8zhMkVB #auspol
— AEC (@AusElectoralCom) March 16, 2018
Earlier Bhathal told Guardian Australia that it “doesn’t feel that we will necessarily win it … It’s going to be line ball”.
In front of the cameras she is more optimistic, but the party is leaving nothing to chance.
Di Natale questions Kearney’s integrity on asylum seekers and the proposed Adani coalmine, suggesting that despite her personal opinions she will toe the party line.
“Do [voters] want a strong progressive woman elected here in the seat of Batman who won’t just talk about the things that she cares about, but will vote for them?” he says. “That’s the key difference between the Labor candidate here and Alex Bhathal … there’s only one candidate who will back up what she says during this campaign with her vote.”
He then latches on to concerns, particularly among Liberal party voters, about Labor’s recently announced policy to end cash refunds for excess imputation credits, saying some pensioners and low-income self-funded retirees rely on that money.
The Liberal party did not stand a candidate in the byelection but polled 20% in 2016, leaving a lot of votes up for grabs.
“I say to people who might be inclined to vote conservative, they might be inclined to stay at home, well here is your chance to say what you think about Bill Shorten’s attack on so many people in this community,” Di Natale said.
Labor frontbencher Brendan O’Connor, speaking alongside Kearney at a nearby park, says any suggestion the proposed reform will affect the pension, superannuation accounts or share dividends is untrue.
Asked if announcing the national policy this week had damaged the byelection campaign, O’Connor said it was important to be honest with voters about Labor’s policy direction, adding: “You could argue that there is never a good time to announce policies that are hard, but we will not shy away from the hard decisions.”
Kearney says she feels “confident” heading into polling day.
“Without jinxing myself, touching wood, I’m feeling really good about tomorrow,” she says. “We have good policies, very good policies, local policies, I have listened very hard to the electorate.”
Both sides say the vote is far too close to call. Labor has, by its own internal and unreleased polling, said it has gained on the Greens to the point that support for Kearney and Bhathal is neck-and-neck.
Neither party can afford to lose. Labor has held the seat for 80 years and its loss could put Bill Shorten’s leadership in jeopardy.
The Greens won the primary vote in 2016 but Liberal preferences held it for Labor. Without a Liberal candidate, the seat is seen as the Greens’ to lose. They have never entered a federal lower house contest in such a strong position.
That position has been eroding due to internal party conflicts, which last week saw Greens members leaking damaging documents about Bhathal, including a 101-page complaint alleging intimidation and bullying of party volunteers by her, and a 2013 report that Di Natale investigated Bhathal for the alleged misuse of confidential party information.
Di Natale has played down the complaints, saying it was “disappointing” that disgruntled members were “undermining” the campaign.
Bhathal says the infighting “doesn’t seem to have” affected her campaign, which still has hundreds of volunteers, and says she is “unable to comment on the motivations” of those who have leaked against her.
Greens Yarra City councillor and former mayor Amanda Stone is handing out how-to-vote cards for the party at the pre-poll station at the Australian Electoral Commission office in Thornbury. She has been disappointed but not surprised by the negative aspects of the campaign, which she says are “inevitable” as the Greens find themselves in a winnable position.
“All political parties and all organisations have internal tussles, it’s part of being human, but it’s how those tussles are handled that is important,” she says. “It’s really unfortunate that some people have felt so strongly that they needed to provide information to the media, but it’s not helpful.”
Craig Greene, who is leaving the Thornbury pre-poll, says he typically votes for the Liberal party but has voted for Bhathal at this byelection – “Not that we had a choice,” he adds – because the Greens were the only party to respond to his concerns about a development near his home in Northcote.
