'Voters are searching for a genuine alternative and are finding that in the Greens,' says Carey. She cites as one example the tax cuts promised by both major parties, noting that a majority of voters polled on the issue would forego the cuts for more spending on health and education. In fact, a Radio National Australia Talks program broadcast after our interview noted that the preference for more spending on services rather than tax cuts had run as high as 88 per cent in the 'bell-wether' seat of Eden–Monaro.

'The only party that's offering that kind of alternative is the Greens,' Carey says.

For Carey, the relevance of the Greens in Batman is strengthened by preferential voting. They have preferenced Labor second in the seat, with Labor returning the compliment. In the admittedly likely case that the Greens are not elected, Carey said their preferences would flow to Labor, helping to throw out the Howard Government while sending a message to the new Rudd Government about voters' support for Greens policies.

It's only a year since she ran as an Upper House candidate for the Northern Metropolitan Region in the 2006 Victorian State election, so what has fired the lawyer and mother of four to stand for Batman in the federal contest?

Consistent with popular perceptions of the Greens platform, Carey sees the federal sphere as the place where 'some of the key action on climate change needs to be taken'. However, the appeal of the Greens is broadening with strong workplace policies that are garnering significant union support. I mention that recently walking down Barry Street I saw a Greens placard in a front yard alongside an ACTU placard with the 'Your rights at work – worth voting for' message.

This, too, is key to Carey's motivation to run for Batman. As a former union organiser with the CPSU she said she was keen to get rid of WorkChoices, arguing that the Greens have better workplace policies than Labor. The Greens recognised the right of working people to have access to unions, she said, whereas this issue was more often characterised as a union right of entry to the workplace (the restoration of which is not part of Labor's policy). In the case of Batman's backyard textile workers, Carey said that without a union right of entry there was nothing that could be done to stop their exploitation.

On the day of our interview, Carey had spoken to a carpet factory worker at a street stall on the Broadway in Reservoir. He told the candidate that he and his co-workers had a collective agreement, but, had management wanted, they could all have been forced onto AWAs under the current laws. In that case, he asked Carey, 'Without the right to withhold labour, what could you do?' Carey sees the protection of the right to strike as another strength of the Greens' workplace policy over Labor's offering.

But it is also the perspective of being a mother that is driving Carey to contest the seat. 'Being a parent gives you a very direct stake in the future,' she says. That goes especially for issues like climate change and with young people going into the workforce. Carey said women (and young people generally) were concentrated in those parts of the economy that had fewer protections of employment conditions and wages, and were more often part-time and casualised.

Bringing this back to Batman, I asked what she thought was the mix of local and broader issues that argued for voting Greens. Were there any issues flying under the radar?

In the context of central concerns about climate change and WorkChoices, Carey said that health was also an important issue that had particular relevance to pockets of entrenched socio-economic disadvantage in Batman. She said the Greens policy emphasised prevention to help address poor health outcomes associated with lower income groups. She also highlighted public transport, which she said was good in Batman, but could be made a lot better through improved coordination that reduced people's reliance on cars. While generally seen as a State issue, public transport could be supported through the federal funding currently devoted to roads, she argued.

A look at Martin Ferguson's recent media releases reveals the extent of the ALP's emphasis on roads funding, a problem Carey said Labor shared with the Coalition.

'It's extraordinarily short-sighted on the part of the Coalition and Labor to be focusing on more funding for roads in light of peak oil and climate change'.

The other sleeper for Batman was the cost of living, which Carey attributed not only to rising interest rates, but also to the effect of drought and climate change on food prices.

Moving the focus to her strongest opponent, I asked Carey what was Ferguson's biggest weakness, and what, if any, was the common ground?

From her door-knocking and meeting people on the streets, she said that Ferguson wasn't seen as being very interested in Batman. He was also part of the ALP's me-too-ism and was too close to the uranium industry.

'He believes that growth is the answer to everything, and the resources we export are part of that wonderful prospect of growth. It's a blinkered approach that (in the case of uranium) ignores safety concerns and fails to recognise that growth isn't the basis of happiness, a good society or even a strong economy'.

She said that while Labor's industrial relations and climate change policies were 'much better' than the Coalition's, Labor fell down in areas such as not having short-term targets for carbon emissions. Carey said 2050 was too far away when much more immediate action was needed. The Greens targets are 30 per cent below 1990 emissions by 2020 and 80 per cent below 1990 levels by 2050.

At this point I noted that the Ferguson Report for October shows renewables as a Labor priority without specific funding, but quantifies $500 million for 'clean-coal' technology and the same investment for green cars. Wasn't the emphasis on clean-coal technology justified given the prevalence of coal-fired power stations? Carey responded that the problem with clean-coal technology was that it was speculative, while we had viable renewable energy technologies now.

For readers who'd like to delve further into the differences in policies, a rating of federal candidates has been undertaken by The Big Switch, with both Carey and Ferguson assessed on energy and climate change.

Our conversation then moved to the local campaign. What had been some of the challenges of getting Greens messages out to Batman voters?

Carey said there was a problem getting media coverage, not only in Batman, but in the mainstream media generally. She said the coverage was not in proportion to the Greens electoral support. Asked why, she said that the media seemed to be besotted by the contest between the two parties.

To address this, the Greens had taken a grassroots approach, relying on about 100 volunteers in Batman. Anecdotally the plan was working, with Carey reporting a good reception from local traders in Preston, the Preston Market and in Reservoir. She said the traders were happy to take copies of the Greens newspaper, and their support was to some degree representative of the wider community.

What issues did she think might sway Labor and Liberal voters respectively to vote for the Greens? Climate change would be a factor in both camps, she said, with WorkChoices for Labor and forests and conservation for the Liberals being additional issues that might attract these voters to the Greens.

Finally, I asked what she thought was the most likely scenario after the 24 November election. She responded that a Rudd Labor Government would likely be elected, with the Greens holding the balance of power in the Senate. After the election they'd be 'working with Labor to undo some of the harm done by the Howard Government, but also keeping Labor to account'.

'Vote 1 Greens for the Senate,' she added, and our interview was done.