Leaked claims of bullying and intimidation against Greens candidate for Batman Alex Bhathal are threatening to derail the minor party's push for a second lower house seat in the federal parliament.
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Ms Bhathal has been forced to publicly deny that she is a bully as her party struggles to limit the damage from the leak of serious internal allegations against her.
The most senior figures in the Victorian Greens have rallied behind their candidate for the Batman byelection and say they will not dump her despite the airing of complaints of "serious, repeated and often wilful misconduct" by Ms Bhathal.
Party Leader Richard Di Natale came to the defence of his candidate, who has been accused of bullying, intimidation, branch stacking and being a "toxic element in our party" by fellow members of the Greens' Darebin branch.
Senator Di Natale said the complaints had been thoroughly investigated and had not been substantiated.
The complaints, made by 18 fellow members in the weeks before the resignation of the former member for Batman, Labor's David Feeney, were abruptly dealt with in the days after the byelection was called in February.
But The Age understands ill feeling about the behaviour of Ms Bhathal and some of her supporters remains strong, despite the party's claims that the matter has been dealt with.
Complainants have alleged an "ALP-style" campaign of intimidation against factional opponents of Ms Bhathal by her allies, some of whom are relatively new party members.
The internal feuding in Australia's largest Greens branch flared up again on Thursday, throwing their Batman campaign into turmoil, after media outlets were briefed on the contents of the 101-page dossier of complaint.
The complaints contain statements that allege "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 and processes, attack and harass members considered to be 'in the way' and we believe, to recruit members for the purposes of swaying preselection results," News Ltd reported on Thursday.
The complainants also alleged an escalating pattern of behaviour from Ms Bhathal.
"Her tactics have become more aggressive and ruthless, her breaches of the code more flagrant and brazen, her behaviour many magnitudes more destructive," the complaint reads.
At a hastily arranged press conference in Thornbury on Thursday, Ms Bhathal denied she was a bully and said she believed she had the strong backing of her community.
"No, I'm not that kind of person and I think that the community will understand that," she said.
Ms Bhathal said it was disappointing that an internal report detailing the allegations of bullying and branch-stacking had been leaked to the media.
"It's disappointing but I've got the overwhelming support of my branch, hundreds of people," she said.
Ms Bhathal was preselected as Greens candidate for Batman by a huge margin, Mr Di Natale said at the same press conference.
"Clearly there are people who are unhappy with the outcome of the preselection," he said.
"It's a very small group of people, there were 230-odd people who supported Alex, 19 who didn't.
"We need to follow due process here, somebody has decided to leak this report to the media and that's disappointing."
Senator Di Natale said the complaints had been considered and had not been substantiated.
"The complaint was taken very seriously and considered carefully by the State Executive, indeed there is a thorough probity and vetting process for all of our candidates," Senator Di Natale told ABC radio earlier on Thursday.
"None of those complaints could be substantiated."
"No question, there are tensions between some of the people in that branch and we have some work to do."
The party leader said Ms Bhathal had his backing to continue her run for Batman.
The March 17 byelection will be the sixth time Ms Bhathal has attempted to win Batman for the Greens, who are favoured to take the seat from Labor this time round.
Labor candidate Ged Kearney said the allegations had surprised her and suggested the Greens should reveal the full details of the report.
"If we can do it without going against any confidentiality then I think perhaps it's time to just tell the story and let everyone know what happened, be transparent," Ms Kearney said.
"Maybe that way we can actually get on with the things that really matter in Batman."
