James, one of the Northcote campaign’s dedicated door-knockers, shares his reflections on the value of talking to people about what matters to them  

I’ve got time to kill before people turn up for this afternoon’s door knock in Alphington, so I head for the backyard to tend to the veggie patch. It’s a scientific fact that 90% of Greens are also amateur horticulturalists. The other 10% are professionals. I’m in the former category – and right at the black-thumb-end of the spectrum, so I’m still on the easy stuff – radishes, rocket, spinach, carrots. 

As I’m pottering around, watering and inspecting suspicious bite marks, I realise that, actually, door knocking is like planting a garden. Bear with me.

When you set out to plant something new, you march out to the garden with this vision of the end product – huge crisp radishes, bag-fulls of beautiful carrots. So too on a door knock – when you head out all you’re thinking about is having great conversations, changing votes, the voting booths coming back overflowing with Green ballots in November.

In both cases there’s actually a lot of work that has to get done first. Digging, planting, watering, pruning; training, walking, knocking, knocking again, giving up, filling data sheets, moving to the next house. It can be repetitive, physically exhausting.

And in both cases progress can feel pretty slow. It can feel like you’re not really achieving much. Even when you do talk to someone, is that conversation really going to do anything? Sometimes you feel like you’re not even making a dent. It’s the same feeling you get after two weeks of those seeds you planted in the backyard doing exactly nothing.

But seeds will eventually bloom, given the right conditions. As do the ideas you’ve planted in the people you talk to on their doorsteps. The voter you chat with and listen to will mull it all over, if only on their way back down the hallway after you’ve left. They’ll mention it to their partner, their room-mate. They’ll bring it up at work. They’ll remember that conversation when they see the political attack ads and slick pamphlets offered up by the other parties.

As the election gears up, that conversation you had with them will loom larger in their mind. Maybe, when November 29 rolls around and they cast their ballot, they won’t end up voting Green, but they’ll almost definitely think a little bit more about their decision and make a more informed vote. Talking to people about the election isn’t just good for our Party. It’s damn well good for democracy.

And that’s one door. Every door you knock on, every conversation you have, you plant another seed. No other method of campaign has this kind of effect – only face-to-face conversations plant these kinds of seeds. Some seeds will grow, some won’t. Some will go to seed and germinate new thoughts in others. As with the veggie patch, we can’t always tell what’s worked straight away. All we can do is go out there and try.

The things we’re fighting for – the reasons we support the Greens – are worth it.