Adam Bandt must beat Labor's Cath Bowtell if the Greens are to have a fighting chance against an Abbott government

When you are your party’s only member of parliament, with apologies to Kermit the Frog, it can be quite lonely being Green.

But within the electorate of Melbourne, there is a sense of omnipresence about Adam Bandt.

Walking across the CBD to his electorate office on King Street, I pass half a dozen campaign signs featuring Bandt’s broad smile and the slogan “standing up for what matters”. Later, as I follow Bandt and his affable fiancée Claudia, a yoga teacher, on the door-knocking circuit in Carlton North, it seems that his image is staring back at him from every other house.

The Greens’ Melbourne blitz highlights the party’s determination to retain its sole lower house MP. Freshman joy at Bandt’s historic election in 2010 has given way to steely sophomore professionalism. Everything is bigger this time around – the funding (thanks in part to unions such as the Electrical Trades Union), the volunteer base, and the scope of campaign tactics.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Bandt's campaign hub appears part community legal centre, part university campus. Photograph: Oliver Milman/Guardian Australia

A multitude of challenges face Bandt. Labor – the party of his challenger, Cath Bowtell – held Melbourne for 100 years before being usurped in 2010. Bowtell, a former ACTU officer who is on the left of her party, has been greatly aided by the Liberals’ decision to preference the Greens last.

In order to avoid being eclipsed, Bandt needs to hoist his primary vote by about 4%. Polls are divided over whether he can do this, although the latest, a Galaxy poll released this week, suggests that he is on track to secure 40% of the primary vote, enough for him to edge out Bowtell 52% to 48% two-party-preferred, based on previous preference flows.

“Tony Abbott said that he wants the Greens out and I wear that as a badge of honour,” Bandt says. “I won’t support him and obviously the feeling is mutual. This gives the people of Melbourne a clear choice – do what Tony Abbott wants or elect the deputy leader of a party [that] has the balance of power in the Senate.

“I’m hopeful over the result. The feedback I’ve been getting from people is good. A lot of people held off during the leadership change [when Kevin Rudd returned to the prime ministership] to see what would happen, but once they saw that he was going to the right of John Howard to try to out-tough Tony Abbott on asylum seekers, that was the last step for them.”

The race in Melbourne appears to be run in a refreshing parallel universe to the national competition. Whereas Labor and the Liberals have vied to be as hawkish as possible on asylum seekers, tax and spending, priorities take a sharp left turn in suburbs such as Carlton, Collingwood and Fitzroy.

Collingwood town hall has a banner loudly proclaiming that refugees are welcome in the area. The electorate has a large proportion of public housing and the second largest proportion of young voters of any electorate in the country, due to students attending the University of Melbourne and RMIT. Boilerplate slogans about stopping boats or cutting to the bone fare badly in these parts.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Two of Bandt's team followed the Obama campaign in Virginia and came back with plenty of community organising tips. Photograph: Oliver Milman/Guardian Australia

“There are strong egalitarian and multicultural values here in Melbourne that aren’t really reflected by the Labor and Liberal race to the bottom on refugees,” says Bandt. “Despite what the other parties think, seats will change hands based on progressive and compassionate values.”

This altered playing field has led to Bowtell performing a careful kabuki in which she publicly opposes Labor’s PNG agreement but also tries to frame the Greens as opportunists who lack the parliamentary grunt to offer a more humane approach.

“Of course the asylum seeker issue comes up on the doorstep,” Bowtell tells me as we shiver in the chill outside a prepolling booth at the Australian Electoral Commission’s cramped Melbourne office.

“People are really over the demonisation and fear-mongering that has characterised the debate. They don’t like any party, including those to the left of Labor, continuing to agitate this issue for political advantage.”

Bandt concedes that he and Bowtell may share politically progressive bloodlines, but points out that he will vote against the excesses of the government while his opponent will likely be “a backbencher in a demoralised opposition”, forced to toe the party line.

Bowtell isn’t having any of it. “Labor is a party of government,” she says. “People were attracted to the Greens under Bob Brown. They have experimented with the Greens and they can see that, while they make a lot of noise, they can’t actually change anything.

“You can write good policy and seek to influence government or you can seek to be in government. We seek to be in government.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest With Bandt's image everywhere, there's a sense of omnipresence in this electorate. Photograph: Oliver Milman/Guardian Australia

Bandt looks very much the former industrial relations lawyer he is, rather than a radical greenie – “I’ve been used to wearing a shirt and tie since about 1997,” he says – but his party’s activist roots are still on display. His campaign hub appears part community legal centre, part university campus, stuffed with leaflets for disadvantaged groups and earnest but idealistic types in tight jeans.

Bandt’s own office area has been shunted to a smaller room, to be replaced by a data team that crunches numbers on swinging voters. Two of his team followed the Obama campaign in Virginia and came back with plenty of community organising tips, aided by the hard numbers.

“The doors we choose to knock on are worked out by the data guys,” says one young Bandt door knocker, in reverential tones. “They are fantastic. We have what we call data parties.”

Campaign strategists have long anticipated that the Liberals would preference the Greens last, forcing the minor party to buck national trends and increase its vote to retain Melbourne. The Greens have focused on a strong ground game, organising discussion forums with voters and phoning the undecided.

“We knew it would be different this time around,” says Bandt as we hit the carefully selected door-knocking trail. “The media are always onto the next big thing, such as [Clive] Palmer or [Bob] Katter, so we knew we had to generate our own momentum.”

How have the last three years been, with its hung parliament and leadership sagas? “It’s been great,” he says. “I’ve had a ball. We’ve managed to be change agents and get things that I and the people of Melbourne are passionate about on to the national agenda.”

Bandt cites the price on carbon and dental visits being included in Medicare as key Greens achievements but admits that these have often been overshadowed.

“Ninety-nine times out of 100 we got Labor, Greens, country independents and city independents on the same page, which was a great achievement,” he says.

“The message didn’t get across fully in the community because, firstly, Tony Abbott is a very effective negative politician. And secondly, Labor’s internal turmoils meant that front page news was always leadership speculation rather than the good things we were achieving in parliament.

“I do think Julia Gillard deserves a lot more credit than she’s been given for legislating a price on pollution and guiding this period of a hung parliament.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest “We are thinking people around here,” a woman with an anti-uranium sign on her window tells Bandt, almost conspiratorially. Photograph: Oliver Milman/Guardian Australia

So was Gillard better for the Greens than Rudd?

“I’m not at all convinced that Kevin Rudd could’ve done what Julia Gillard did and hold together a minority parliament,” Bandt says. “With Julia Gillard you could always have discussions. By no means would you always agree, but the lines of communication were always open,” Bandt says.

“That commitment to negotiation was vital in that period. Her own side spent two and a half years tearing her down. I think history will be much kinder to her than her colleagues have been.”

Bandt references Abbott regularly and it’s easy to see why. Noses instinctively wrinkle in Carlton North at the mention of the Coalition leader’s name. This area of the electorate isn’t considered a Greens stronghold, but Bandt receives a very warm welcome.

“Oh, you’re the MP, aren’t you? I’ve seen your face everywhere,” says a vest-wearing man as he munches on a pear. “I saw one poster for the other lady and felt sorry for her as it was the only one.”

A woman who lives next door to a house adorned with an anti-uranium sticker wishes Bandt good luck. “We are thinking people around here,” she tells him, almost conspiratorially.

Topics on the doorstep range from the controversial proposed east-west link road in Melbourne – “a stupid idea” is uttered more than once – to working rights for part-timers.

The bohemian nature of the electorate reveals itself in a lengthy debate between a householder and Bandt over the tax arrangements for artists as a young woman on a vintage bicycle with a green triangle in the basket that reads “no road tunnel” wobbles past, as if straight from central casting.

Bandt’s door knocking team congregate at the Great Northern Hotel, where they let off steam in the Wednesday night trivia competition under the team name “Bandtwagon”.

The young cohort takes turns to talk about why they volunteer for Bandt. The environment, transport, refugees and health are common answers. One volunteer, from the US, says she doesn’t want Australia’s health system to become like that of her homeland.

It appears that iconography, as well as campaign tactics, filtered over from Virginia – several volunteers have T-shirts featuring Bandt’s distinctive silhouette of angled hairline and stylish spectacles. At the risk of being glib, if there were a hipster’s choice of candidate at the election, it would be Bandt.

In reality, the studious Bandt comes from a more traditionally Labor lineage. His grandfather ran a post office, working hard to provide opportunities for his family. Bandt joined Labor in high school in Western Australia, before moving to Melbourne in 1995 to follow a career in law.

He recalls he was a “sympathetic fellow traveller” with Labor until a watershed moment arrived when Labor preferences helped Family First member and Young Earth believer Steve Fielding into the Senate. It’s clear that Bandt continues to feel let down.

“We’re picking up the social justice mantle that other parties seem quite happy to cast off,” Bandt says. “Labor has a lot of people who cry out about how terrible things are, wring their hands and then vote for it.”

He adds: “The reason I quit my job to go into politics was climate change. I think Labor made a grave error in stopping talking about climate change once the price was put on pollution. The Liberals’ great victory has been shifting the debate to costs and taxes, and Labor surrendered that ground.”

The question that must vex the Greens privately is why more left-leaning Labor voters haven’t defected to the party. If Bandt manages to increase his share of the vote and retain his seat, it will be in stark contrast to the flatlining, or worse, the Greens are enduring in the polls nationally.

One potential answer to this question – that leftist voters are sticking with Labor, albeit reluctantly, in order to prevent an Abbott government – is a key electoral platform for Bowtell.

“People are conscious of the fact that the Greens are putting a lot of effort into beating Labor in Melbourne,” she says. “We are putting effort into beating the conservatives. That’s where people in Melbourne want the fight to be.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest On the doorstep the controversial east-west link road is mentioned and 'a stupid idea' is uttered more than once. Photograph: Oliver Milman/Guardian Australia

Labor could certainly do with more policy advocates like Bowtell, who seems almost overwhelmed by the party’s policy achievements.

“Look at Labor’s track record on progressive taxation, tax relief, progressive tax on super, paid parental leave, a royal commission on sex abuse, leaving aside money for education and pricing pollution,” she says, before realising there’s more. “Disability Care! What about Disability Care? This debate is very much about health and education. We don’t talk about public finances for an intellectual discussion, but for the services they deliver us.”

Bowtell’s campaign has suffered from a comparative, and rather surprising, lack of funding compared with Bandt’s. It is all borrowed mobile phones and drafted volunteers from the state Labor party. In a bid to make up for this, a succession of ministerial heavyweights, including Penny Wong and Anthony Albanese, have descended upon Melbourne to support Bowtell’s bid.

This time, it’s former climate change minister Greg Combet, who worked with Bowtell at the ACTU. Combet insists that not only can Bowtell win, but Labor will also prevail nationally.

“I remember back in 1993 we were probably in a worse spot than this,” he says, jamming his hands into his pockets to protect them from the Melbourne winter air. “We can win this. It’ll be tough. But we can.

“Cath is an authoritative voice, she’s intelligent, articulate and strong. She’ll go very well in caucus.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest In one of the most educated but also most alternative electorates in Australia, there are few certainties. Photograph: Oliver Milman/Guardian Australia

Both Bandt and Bowtell are using the prospect of a Liberal government as a proxy for their own campaigns. Whichever version of this theme the voters of Melbourne buy into will prove decisive in the contest.

Then again, in one of the most educated but also most alternative electorates in Australia, there are few certainties.

“I don’t know who I’ll vote for, I haven’t thought about it,” a middle-aged woman tells Bandt with a beaming smile. You must be a swinging voter then, I inquire. “No. I don’t make my mind up until I’m in the booth. I’m not a swinging voter, I’m a whimsical voter.”

And with that, she is off.