The crunch by-election in the state seat of Northcote is getting nasty with one candidate saying her recent past of marriage breakdown and domestic violence has been dredged-up in an attempt to damage her chances.
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The Greens say the story of their candidate Lidia Thorpe's bankruptcy four years ago was being "shopped around" Melbourne media outlets in recent days.
A Labor spokesman told The Age on Thursday the party was not behind the stories.
Ms Thorpe, who was discharged from bankruptcy in 2016, says the financial problems that forced her to seek protection from creditors in 2013 were the direct result of her marriage disintegrating into alcoholism and violence and she was shocked when told the ordeal was being dragged into the by-election campaign.
The National Personal Insolvency Index, which is accessible to the public, shows Ms Thorpe was declared bankrupt in December 2013 and the bankruptcy was discharged in December 2016.
But the 44-year-old mother-of-three told The Age on Thursday that the official record did not even begin to tell the whole story of the collapse of her family business, her marriage and the difficult decision to file for bankruptcy.
Ms Thorpe said the family home was used to guarantee loans to her husband's glazing business, of which she was a director, and as the enterprise got into trouble, she found herself liable for the debts that were increasingly difficult to pay.
As the business failed, Ms Thorpe's husband's problems with alcohol spiralled and the relationship turned violent.
After they broke up, Ms Thorpe said she had wanted to pay the debts but was advised that bankruptcy was the quickest way to end the trauma and start afresh.
Speaking ahead of her campaign launch on Thursday, Ms Thorpe told of the struggle to put her life back together.
"I'm still trying to get back on my feet, that's why I'm a renter," she said.
"It's been a big shift in my life but I'm tough."
The candidate said she was shocked when she was told her past was being trawled over.
"I was a little shocked that people have gone to that level to try to hurt me," she said.
"But at the same time, I'm running for public office, and it made me think this is probably why a lot of women in these circumstances don't ever step up and run for public office or do anything where they're going to be in the spotlight because people are very quick to try to pull you down."
Ms Thorpe's husband on Thursday confirmed the candidate's account of the end of their marriage, saying he too was trying to get his life back on track and that he wished her well in her tilt at state Parliament.
The stakes are high in Northcote as voters in the inner-north seat prepare to go to the polls on November 18 to elect a replacement for Labor's Fiona Richardson who died in August.
Labor is fighting hard to defend the seat it first won in 1927 and has never relinquished, but the vote's broader implications for the state's political landscape are huge.
A Greens win makes Labor's defence of its other threatened inner-city seats of Brunswick and Richmond in next year's state election much tougher and puts the minor party well on the way to balance-of-power status.
