Greens call for Batman by-election candidate to be axed

An internal push is revealed to axe Alex Bhathal, the Greens candidate in Batman, over accusations of intimidation and bullying.

Greens leader Richard Di Natale and his Greens candidate for Batman Alex Bhathal, who has been accused of intimidation, bullying and branch stacking.

The Greens candidate attempting to win the seat of Batman and end a century of Labor representation in Melbourne’s north is accused by members of her party of intimidation, bullying, branch stacking, spreading “reckless false statements’’ and cultivating ALP-style factionalism within the party’s largest branch.

A complaint lodged by 18 Greens campaign volunteers, office-holders and elected representatives calls on the party’s state executive to disendorse Alex Bhathal as the Batman candidate and expel her from the party, warning that her election to federal parliament would pose a serious risk to the party’s future growth and unity.

The party said the complaint had been considered and dealt with.

The complainants are current or former members of Ms Bhathal’s Darebin branch, which controls preselections for the Darebin council, the state seats of Northcote and Preston, and the now winnable federal seat of Batman.

They are Greens who supported her previous campaigns, who ­attended branch meetings and party functions with her and who, since the 2016 federal election when she ran and lost in Batman for a fifth time, are concerned at her “increasingly malicious’’ ­behaviour towards anyone she perceives as disloyal.

The 101-page complaint and covering letter, seen by The Australian, depicts a power-hungry, perennial candidate who ruthlessly uses proxies to stifle debate, manipulate internal party procedures and undermine fellow members. It accuses her of ­“serious, repeated, often wilful misconduct’’ and demands the ­allegations be fully investigated.

“This misconduct has included systematic intimidation, and ­malicious and reckless false statements about members and party decisions,’’ the complaint reads.

“The attached statements ­include instances of direct ­intimidation and victimisation on the part of Alex, as well as the wider, more systematic operation of her political machine, which has been used to undermine ­consensus decision-making ­processes, attack and harass members considered to be ‘in the way’ and we believe, to recruit members for the purpose of swaying preselection results. Alex’s behaviour has escalated markedly in the past year. Her tactics have become more aggressive and ruthless, her breaches of the code of conduct more flagrant and brazen, her ­behaviour many magnitudes more destructive. We believe she must be held to account and cannot be allowed to continue on as a representative and member of the Victorian Greens.’’

The complaint was made to the party’s state executive on January 15, two weeks before Labor’s David Feeney retired from the parliament and triggered the Batman by-election — a knife-edge contest in which early voting began this week.

The complainants, who ­requested their identities be concealed from Ms Bhathal, say the party’s interests would be better served by the Greens losing ­Batman than Ms Bhathal winning it. This would enable the party to preselect a new candidate for the next federal election.

It is understood Ms Bhathal has not been shown the full complaint. She declined to respond to the allegations and invited Batman voters to make their own judgment.

“The people of Batman have over 30 years experience of my character and I have faith that my community will rely on their first hand knowledge of me over the decades,’’ she said last night.

Ms Bhathal was strongly backed by the three Victorian Greens in federal parliament: Adam Bandt, Richard Di Natale and Janet Rice.

“Alex convincingly won the preselection,’’ they said in a joint statement to The Australian. “She is held in the highest regard by members and supporters within the broader community.

“It is disappointing that ­despite this support and the party resolving this matter, someone who is unhappy with the outcome has taken it to the media.’’

The co-convener of the Victorian Greens, Colin Jacobs, said the complaint had been considered and dealt with. “We take all allegations of this nature seriously,” he said. “The party considered these matters and found the ­material presented lacked sufficient evidence to reconsider Alex’s preselection.’’

This is disputed by the complainants. They say the allegations raised against Ms Bhathal prompted a review of her endorsement for Batman by a three-­person committee but were not properly investigated by the party.

Ms Bhathal is a Tampa Green: the cohort of political activists who joined the Greens in the lead-up to the 2001 election motivated less by environmental concerns than ­opposition to immigration and border protection policies.

When she first ran for the Greens in Batman in 2001 it was an unwinnable, “dead-red’’ seat. In every election she has stood as a candidate, she has eroded Labor’s hold on it.

In 2016, after Mr Feeney ran a train-wreck campaign, Ms Bhathal got to within 1853 votes of ­entering federal parliament. She works as a social worker, lives in Preston, is a mother of two and is well known in the electorate.

Some of the allegations raised against her appear frivolous. She is accused of standing in front of ­another Greens representative at a media doorstop so she wouldn’t appear on TV, of passive aggression, of “unfriending’’ a party member on Facebook and in typical Greens-speak, of projecting, triggering and making the Darebin branch an unsafe space. The more serious allegations are:

● That she recruited a dramatic influx of new members to the Darebin branch early last year to stack the numbers in favour of her own preselection and marginalise perceived political opponents.

● That she orchestrated a campaign to undermine the preselection chances of City of Darebin councillor Susanne Newton in the state seat of Preston.

● That she waged a ruthless, intercine war against four Greens members of the Darebin council and used her social media accounts to support non-Greens candidates running against them.

The complaint does not contain grievous instances of bullying or harassment but documents a corrosive pattern of alleged behaviour including late-night phone calls, incessant text messaging and malicious backgrounding, reducing party members to tears and creating a bitterly divided Darebin branch. None of the allegations has been proven.`

The Greens state executive and its federal leadership have backed Ms Bhathal as the party’s best chance of securing a second lower-house seat in the federal parliament.

Labor has preselected Ged Kearney, the president of the ACTU, in an attempt to hold the seat. The Batman by-election will be held on March 17.