Federal election: ‘Termite’ Greens seek the wood on ALP, Terri Buttler

The Greens have launched their biggest ever campaign, targeting Labor’s Terri Butler, as they seek a historic seat.

Greens candidate Max Chandler-Mather, doorknocking homes in the Griffith electorate, speaks to local Liz Logan in Holland Park, Brisbane. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen

The Greens have launched their biggest campaign in party history in a bid to eat away support for Labor frontbencher Terri Butler “like termites” and claim their first lower house seat in Queensland.

With the federal election only months away, Greens candidate Max Chandler-Mather and his army of 500 volunteers are doorknocking tens of thousands of homes in Brisbane’s inner south.

Mr Chandler-Mather said his team had already spoken with 14,000 people at their homes, surpassing the record of 11,200 during Adam Bandt’s 2013 campaign in the seat of Melbourne. He plans to reach 35,000 people before election day.

“This is three times bigger than anything we have done before,” he said.

After securing a 6.7 per cent swing in Griffith in 2019 – the largest swing to the Greens in Australia – Mr Chandler-­Mather said his campaign needed to change the minds of another 3800 Labor voters to win.

“Which sounds like quite a few but that would represent half the swing we got last time. We need another 3.5 per cent,” he said.

“I think we have a really bloody good shot, nothing is certain in politics, but this feels very much like a winning campaign.”

Labor frontbencher Terri Butler. Picture: AAP

Held by Kevin Rudd from 1996 to 2013, the Greens believe Griffith is their second-most winnable seat in the country, behind Macnamara in Melbourne.

Griffith takes in multimillion-dollar mansions along the Brisbane River, pockets of public housing, university sharehouses and middle-class suburbia. With five major hospitals, the electorate is home to a large health workforce.

The Greens’ chief political strategist in Queensland for the past five years, Mr Chandler-Mather masterminded the win of the party’s first two seats in state parliament – Maiwar in 2017 and South Brisbane in 2020.

“In 2017, while all the media was focused on South Brisbane, what everyone failed to see was every weekend there were hundreds of volunteers going out knocking on thousands of doors slowly, like termites eating away the support of the LNP in that area,” he said.

“If a person’s experience of Labor and Liberal campaigns is a flyer and TV ad, and their experience of the Greens is a 15-minute chat about their experience growing up in the area and what they want changed, we will have the advantage,” he said.

But Labor sources believe Ms Butler, Labor’s environment spokeswoman, is not under serious threat.

 

“We are not overly worried, the Greens always talk a big game,” a senior party source said.

Ms Butler said she was “taking nothing for granted but I won’t be spending time on the Greens party, I will be campaigning to remove the Morrison government”.

Political scientist Paul Williams, a senior lecturer at Griffith University, said although the Greens would likely see an increase in their primary vote, it would not be enough to win the inner southern seat.

“Who knows in the future, but not this time and probably not next time either,” he said.

“Doorknocking is an old campaign strategy but it is still highly effective, people love direct contact.”

Dr Williams expects up to a 9 per cent surge back to Labor in Griffith, where it has suffered swings against it every election since 2007.

“It is a well-educated electorate and has been the home to smart, savvy local members like Kevin Rudd, it should be getting close to rolled gold Labor so it surprises me that it is much more fragile than it probably should be,” he said.

“Labor considers Terri Butler to be a very good future minister and potentially a leader. She will hold the seat and increase her majority.”

Dr Williams said the LNP candidate, Olivia Roberts, has little chance of winning Griffith at this stage of the electoral cycle, a sentiment shared by Coalition insiders.