The Australian Labor Party has been accused of attempting to smear the Greens in an anti-vaccination push poll being conducted in the marginal federal electorate of Melbourne Ports.
Last week, residents in the inner south eastern Melbourne electorate received an automated phone call commissioned by Noah Carroll, the Australian Labor Party's national secretary and campaign director.
The poll asked callers a series of routine questions about their preferred political party and leader, before ending with a question linking the Australian Greens to the anti-vaccination movement. It asked whether voters would be more or less likely to vote Greens after finding out they were anti-vaxxers.
"The last question asked how I felt about the Green Party policies appeasing the anti-vaccination movement," one Caulfield resident who received the call told BuzzFeed News.
He felt the question inaccurately linked the Greens to the anti-vax movement and was framed in a way that would elicit an anti-Greens response, a common tactic used in push polling.
Push polling is a strategy used by political parties to manipulate voters' answers in an opinion poll by asking leading and often negative questions.
"At the end of the call, there was a message saying this call was authorised by Noah Carroll ... [I did a Google search] and discovered he is the national secretary of the Labor party," he said.
To find out further information about who commissioned the survey participants had to opt in to listen to a long legal message and press a button requesting more information.
Labor's national office refused to answer BuzzFeed News' questions, saying it doesn't comment on any research it undertakes. But the office of current Labor member Michael Danby was not aware the polling was taking place until informed by BuzzFeed News.
Greens leader Dr Richard Di Natale is furious with the poll, as his party strongly supports vaccination.
"As a doctor who has seen kids die from preventable diseases, there is no stronger advocate in the parliament for immunising our kids," Di Natale told BuzzFeed News.
The Greens say the poll is an example of the "dirty tactics" campaign it claims Labor ran in closely-contested inner-city seats during this year's federal election campaign.
"It's sad that the Labor Party would stoop this low and lie about a serious issue affecting the health of our kids," Di Natale said.
The seat of Melbourne Ports has been a focal point in the Labor-Greens fight in recent years as centre-left and young voters in the metropolitan area swing from Labor to the Greens.
The current Labor member, Michael Danby, has held the seat for 18 years and is one of the most outspoken voices in Labor's campaign against the Greens. In the July election he went so far as to break party ranks and preference the Liberal candidate in his seat ahead of the Greens.
If 477 votes had changed hands from Labor to the Greens in July, the flow of preferences would have cost Labor the seat, which it has held since 1906.
BuzzFeed News understands the Victorian right faction of the ALP wants to dump Danby before the next election, which would explain his lack of knowledge about a poll taking place in his own electorate.
Sources said the polling was the first step towards removing Danby and kickstarting the party's battle against the Greens to retain the seat.
Insiders suggest Danby is unhappy at not receiving a parliamentary secretary role, and not rising further within the party since the election, but is stubbornly clinging onto his seat.
Ari Suss, a former electorate officer for Danby and a senior adviser to the Bracks Victorian state government, is tipped as the hot favourite in the upcoming preselection battle. He is currently executive director for transport billionaire Lindsay Fox's Fox Private Group, the private family investment arm of the Linfox Group of Companies.