Kearney won the seat with a 3.35% swing toward Labor (TCP), for a total of 54.38% of the after-preferences vote. The electorate of Batman was abolished in 2019 and replaced with the Division of Cooper, which Kearney won at the 2019 and 2022 Australian federal elections.
On 6 December 2017, amidst the ongoing citizenship crisis engulfing several MPs, LaborMPDavid Feeney revealed that he was unable to produce documentation confirming he had renounced citizenship of the United Kingdom.[1][2] Consequently, Feeney voluntarily referred himself to the High Court of Australia, considering his likely breach of Section 44 of the Constitution of Australia.[2] By 19 January 2018, Feeney remained unable to produce any documents from British or Irish authorities that he had undertaken to renounce his citizenship and entitlements.[3] The High Court granted Feeney's legal team an extension to 1 February to allow them to continue searching for the relevant documents.[3] At a press conference on 1 February 2018, Feeney announced he would resign from the seat and from politics effective immediately, choosing not to stand as a candidate at the by-election.[4] The date for the by-election was set at 17 March 2018, the same day as the South Australian state election.[5]
Batman had been a solidly Labor seat for the majority of its history. Since its creation in 1906, non-Labor members had only represented the electorate between 1906 and 1910, 1931–1934, and 1966–1969.[6] The Greens, however, made significant gains in vote share in the decades prior to 2017, including receiving a 9.6% swing towards them in the 2016 federal election, placing them first in the primary vote. However, Greens candidate Alex Bhathal was defeated by Feeney on the two-candidate-preferred vote 51%-49% after preference distribution. It was the sixth time Bhathal had contested the seat, having previously run in 2001, 2004, 2010, 2013 and 2016.[7] The growth of the Greens vote over time has been attributed to house price rises and demographic change.[8] The Greens vote had been noted as being particularly strong south of Bell Street, Reservoir, which formed the so-called "hipster-proof fence" or "quinoa curtain".[8]
An anti-Adani event held 18 May 2018. The lower-right image depicts Bill Shorten interacting with anti-Adani protesters on polling day at the by-election.Anti-Adani doorknockers meeting in Batman in February 2018Doorknockers in Batman in February 2018, advocating against the Adani Carmichael coal mine, a significant topic during the by-election.
The environment, and specifically the proposed Adani Carmichael coal mine, were focused on heavily by the Greens in the campaign. Labor leader Bill Shorten and Kearney both expressed their doubts about the project but did not rule it out completely.[12][13] On the day of the by-election, an environmental protester dressed as a fish accosted Kearney and Shorten at a polling booth.[14] The Australian Conservation Foundation distributed material stating only the Greens would "stop Adani's mine from going ahead", and Activist group GetUp! stated they would not assist Labor in campaigning due to Labor's position on the coal mine.[15][16] Other issues that featured in the campaigning were Labor's proposed reforms to dividend imputation (franking credits), with Kearney and Shorten holding a town hall discussing the policy.[17] The Greens also campaigned heavily on asylum seeker and refugee policy, which they perceived as a weakness for Labor.[18]
Divisions within the Greens' campaign assisted Kearney.[19] During the by-election campaign, an internal complaint of bullying by Bhathal was leaked to the media, and members of the Greens' Darebin branch requested her expulsion from the party following Bhathal's support for Lidia Thorpe in the 2017 Northcote state by-election.[20][21] Four Greens councillors were involved in campaigning to have Bhathal removed as the candidate.[22] The ABC reported comments from Greens members stating they would prefer Bhathal lost, despite being in the same party.[23]
Kearney's campaign received the personal endorsement of former Prime Minister Julia Gillard, who wrote a letter that was distributed to 36,000 houses within the electorate.[24] Kearney's candidacy was also endorsed by EMILY's List Australia, a Labor-aligned organisation that advocates for representation of women in parliament.[25]
On 6 March, a candidates' forum was held to discuss climate change policy. Five of the candidates were invited (Kearney, Bhathal, Whitehead, Smith and McDonald), and invitations were not extended to the remaining candidates. In protest at not being invited, Lieshout picketed the event with her mouth taped shut.[26] On 14 March, Kearney's campaign issued an apology for printing campaign material in Greek under the heading "Macedonian".[27] On polling day, reports were made of seniors receiving phone calls instructing them not to vote. In response, Labor campaigners rang seniors in the electorate to urge them to vote.[28]
Key dates
Key dates in relation to the by-election were:[29]
Thursday, 1 February 2018 – Speaker acceptance of resignation
Greens leader Richard Di Natale confirmed to Guardian Australia on 2 February 2018 that Alex Bhathal would run for the seat as the Greens' candidate.[34] A former social worker who has sat on the Darebin Ethnic Communities Council, Bhathal was the Greens' candidate for the seat 5 times previously.[35]
On 20 February 2018, Australian Conservatives director Lyle Shelton announced that Kevin Bailey, a businessman and former SAS soldier, would be the party's candidate at the by-election.[36]
Both Bhathal and Greens leader Richard Di Natale stated on election night that Labor's use of "big money" had significantly contributed to Kearney's victory.[47] Di Natale also stated that Labor's win was also helped by preference arrangements with conservative parties.[47] The day after the by-election, Di Natale stated that the campaign had been damaged by internal leaking and that traditional Greens voters had been "turned off by the leaking and sabotage from a few individuals with a destructive agenda".[48][49] Divisions within the Greens that had hampered their campaign in the by-election persisted following defeat. At the 2018 Victorian state election, the electoral district of Northcote was unexpectedly won by Labor's Kat Theophanous from the Greens' Lidia Thorpe. Internal analysis of the campaign noted that some Greens members refused to campaign for Thorpe due to infighting stemming from the Batman by-election.[50] At the 2022 Victorian state election, Theophanous retained Northcote for Labor with a 1.5% swing to the Greens.[51]
Bhathal had stated during the by-election campaign that if she lost she would contest the seat at the next federal election, but she announced in August 2018 that she was withdrawing from being the candidate due to "sabotage" of her by-election campaign.[52][53] In the same month, an internal Greens review dismissed the bullying allegations leaked about Bhathal during the campaign, and apologised to her.[54] In February 2019, Bhathal resigned from the Greens citing "relentless organisational bullying".[55] A documentary was made about Bhathal's campaign, entitled The Candidate.[56] The screening of the film in July 2019 was sabotaged, with the fire alarm being set off as soon as the film started.[57] In 2024, Bhathal became a candidate for the West Ward at the Darebin City Council election, which was held on 26 October 2024.[58] She ran against Darebin Mayor Sussane Newton, one of the four Greens councillors who tried to remove Bhathal as the candidate for Batman in 2018.[22] Neither Bhathal or Newton were elected at this election.[59]
The Liberal party signalled a lack of interest in the results, with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Treasurer Scott Morrison dismissing any implications for Labor's broader electoral success.[60]
An episode of Tonightly with Tom Ballard that aired during the campaign caused controversy by referring to the electorate's namesake John Batman and Australian Conservatives candidate Kevin Bailey as cunts. Communications minister Mitch Fifield and Education minister Simon Birmingham both called for someone to be sacked from the ABC over the remarks.[61] In August, the ABC found the remarks did not breach standards.[62]
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