Ms Bhathal sensationally announced her resignation on Friday, saying she could no longer work in an environment of "relentless organisational bullying", after her campaign to claim the federal Labor seat of Batman was beset by white-anting by a small group of enemies within her party. In 2016, Ms Bhathal reduced the previously safe Labor seat to a margin of fewer than 2000 votes, losing to Labor's David Feeney on preferences. But the campaign for the 2018 byelection in Batman, triggered by Mr Feeney's resignation, was marred by internal brawls. Ms Bhathal's opponents lodged failed challenges to her preselection with the Greens' endorsement review and probity panels, and delayed her preselection in an attempt to find another candidate. Once the campaign was under way, a 101-page dossier of complaints about Ms Bhathal's conduct – signed by 18 members of the Darebin branch, including four councillors, and calling for her to be expelled from the party – was leaked to the media.

The brawling has also cost the party a significant portion of its membership. In the 21 months to December, 30 per cent of the Victorian branch's members walked away, according to internal figures seen by The Age. Since Ms Bhathal's bombshell resignation, dozens more have said they will follow suit. One of them, Douglas Pretsell, said "the tail is apparently wagging the dog". "What you have is the absurd spectacle of the party falling over backwards to protect a tiny cabal that sought to overthrow a preselected Greens candidate and prevent a Greens victory while censuring anyone that publicly criticises this group," he said.

Loading The one-day Healing Process workshop, designed to "realign [the branch] as a group, heal the conflict and move [them] forward together" was held at the Abbotsford Convent last month and is understood to have cost about $10,000. It's understood about 30 people turned up, the vast majority of them supporters of Ms Bhathal. The Healing Process, held by external facilitators Zenergy Global, was meant to tackle the "division and breakdown" within the Darebin branch. While participants were being led in workshops on "resolving breakdowns" and "moving forward", Ms Bhathal's opponents were preparing another package of complaints about her for Saturday's state council meeting, which they hoped would lead to her being reprimanded or even expelled from the party.

In January, Ms Bhathal was told the Greens disputes panel had opened an investigation into complaints that were "similar or identical" to complaints previously investigated. A previous investigation into the 101-page dossier found no evidence of wrongdoing on her behalf. Another member planning to resign is Liz Ingham, a former long-time staffer to former Victorian Greens leader Greg Barber, who was awarded a $56,000 settlement in 2017 over allegations she suffered sex discrimination and bullying in the leader's office. The former parliamentary adviser said she could no longer be part of a party that failed to provide a safe working environment, and which worked actively to prevent her from lodging a complaint about her treatment in Mr Barber's office. Ms Ingham claimed the party machine swung into action against her when she first complained about Mr Barber's behaviour to party officials. And, she said, she was told by an MP not to officially complain, or "the retaliation against me would be severe".

Ms Ingham said she had been persuaded to finally quit in solidarity with Ms Bhathal. "When the Greens behave like this, they are deciding who they want in the party. "The conditions that made the Greens successful — the spirit of volunteerism, the culture of self-sacrifice for a shared goal, the tantalising chance of success just around the corner if only we try a little more and give a little more and work through the night — are uniquely valuable, but too easily exploitable." Mr Barber paid $9000 of the settlement provided to Ms Ingham himself, on the basis there would be no apology given to Ms Ingham. He has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing. Victorian and national party co-convenor Willisa Hogarth said the party was working hard to improve its disputes resolution processes.

"We've been really working hard to improve those processes. We went from a small party to a medium party really quickly, but a lot of those constitutional processes weren’t really set up to deal with those [internal disputes] effectively."