The Greens leader, Richard Di Natale, has spent the day before the election campaigning in Higgins, where his candidate Jason Ball hopes to make history by defeating the Liberals’ Kelly O’Dwyer, and in Melbourne, the only lower-house seat the Greens hold.
The Melbourne MP, Adam Bandt, in 2010 became the first Greens MP elected to the House of Representatives in a general election and held on to his position in the 2013 election despite the Liberal party directing preferences to Labor.
Bandt has sent key members of his 2013 campaign team to work with Ball in Higgins in the hope that it will give the former Australian rules footballer the boost he needs to make a federal Liberal seat turn Green for the first time. The campaign has been a grassroots one, relying on door-knocking and phone calls from hundreds of volunteers.
Flanked by Di Natale and dozens of Greens volunteers, Ball told reporters on Friday morning that he believed he had done enough to win.
“People in Higgins want strong action on global warming,” he said. “They want an economy powered by clean, renewable energy. And they are dismayed by the race to the bottom from the old parties when it comes to the issue of people seeking asylum. They also want equality, for their sons, daughters and grandchildren, and they don’t want money spent on a wasteful plebiscite that won’t be binding.”
A poll commissioned by the Greens last month found O’Dwyer’s vote in the seat thought to be safe Liberal had fallen by 10.3% to 44.1%. While, if true, it would make her vulnerable to Ball, she may still scrape over the line after preferences. The poll found Ball had increased his party’s primary vote by nearly eight percentage points to 24.1%, putting his party in second position on primary votes, ahead of Labor’s candidate, Carl Katter.
It has been a difficult week for O’Dwyer, who has faced questions about campaign advertising and been embarrassed by a Twitter investigation into why the Liberal party claimed copyright over photos that allegedly belonged to Fairfax in order to have them removed from the social network. The Twitter page has since been restored.
“I think all elections are really important, they’re hotly contested,” she told reporters. “I don’t take this seat for granted.”
Asked about confusion over her campaign advertising, she said “I’m just focused on the issues in this electorate” before cutting the interview short.
Di Natale told Ball supporters: “It’s the Greens that are saying let’s create jobs in the renewable economy, let’s save the reef by taking strong action on climate change, let’s stop locking up those young kids and families in those hellholes offshore and let’s transition Australia to a fairer, more compassionate, more prosperous place.
“At this stage, our job is to get people elected to the lower house of parliament and, if we do it, we’ll have constructive negotiations. Our aim is to make sure our focus is on those policy outcomes.”
However, he later said that strong climate laws were “the No 1 priority” for the Greens going into the next parliament.
“No matter who wins the election this Saturday, the most important challenge for the next three years is taking strong action on global warming,” he said.
In Melbourne with Bandt later on Friday, Di Natale spoke with voters at an early polling centre on Queen Street and handed out how-to-vote cards. Bandt said he was confident of retaining the seat, despite Labor party insiders saying he is vulnerable to their candidate, the lawyer Sophie Ismail.
In the line of early voters was Dragan Kitanovsai, 36, who lives in Fitzroy but is originally from Canada where same-sex marriage is legal. He said he would be voting for Bandt.
“The main platform I’m concerned about is gay marriage and I support the Greens view on that,” he said. “It’s a vote for the LGBTI youth, for them to know that they are equal. It’s a human right for them to grow up knowing that.”
The Greens believe same-sex marriage should be legalised through a vote in parliament and the plebiscite, which they say will be divisive and a waste of money, should be scrapped.
A voter in the electorate of Higgins approached Di Natale in Melbourne, introducing himself as Pete. He told Di Natale that he and his husband would be celebrating their 10-year wedding anniversary in September, adding that they were married in Canada “and yet it’s still not legal here”.
“Well, we’re gonna change that,” Di Natale replied.
Edward Dean, 19, voting for the first time, said he would also be voting Greens, in the Melbourne electorate.
“I was discouraged by how split Labor was in terms of policies on refugees and asylum seekers,” he said.
