This is what they call the “ground game” in one of Australia’s most marginal seats. auspol ausvotes
It’s just past 6pm on Wednesday and Liz Watterson is sitting in an office in East Burwood, not far from the multiple roaring lanes of the Burwood Highway, cold-calling people who live in the ultra-marginal Melbourne seat of Chisholm.
Watterson was one of half a dozen early childhood workers in Garland’s office last week. The previous week, it was aged care workers at the regular phone banks the union is running to call residents across Chisholm’s suburbs, which include Box Hill, Burwood, Blackburn and Mount Waverley. Over the course of the campaign for Chisholm, Victoria’s most marginal seat, Liberal volunteers and Liu herself will make what the party estimates to be 100,000 calls to voters.
“I don’t understand Chinese so would not know what Gladys would have been saying in Mandarin,” says Oon. “In the English message, she states that she is my representative and to contact her if I have any concerns. The calls have come from different mobile numbers.” Also growing in importance with each election is finding volunteers to staff pre-polling stations and hand out campaign material. There are two dedicated booths open in Chisholm, in Mount Waverley and Box Hill.