(Image: Private Media)

In this election series, Crikey teams up with the University of Melbourne’s Centre for Advancing Journalism to delve into the heart of federal marginal seat Chisholm, in south-east Melbourne, to see what people are thinking about in the lead-up to the poll. Find more of the series here.

After a 15-minute drive to find reception, Delldint Fleming phones into our Zoom call from bushland in central Victoria. Beaming with enthusiasm, she explains that she’s a volunteer cook at the Wild by Nature Camp.

As Fleming describes it, the camp’s purpose is to “create a village atmosphere for families, so parents and children can immerse themselves in nature in a way where everyone is looked after and supported”.

Sustainable living, social justice and the preservation of natural resources — these are the themes and threads that run through Fleming’s life and will determine who gets her vote on May 21.

The 54-year-old single mother of four lives her values. A “Food is Free” shelf outside her Blackburn share house is piled high with fruit, veg and pantry items all there for the taking. Locals leave leftover food, to mitigate food waste and care for those in need.

Fleming teaches and practises permaculture. At face value it’s about sustainable, harmonious agriculture and gardening, but she sees it as something richer, a design for living that connects everything from politics and finance to food and water. “It’s about everything we need to have a good life but how to do that without trashing the planet,” she says.

It’s unsurprising to learn that she typically votes Greens. Without the buffer systems and safeguards nature provides, “everything goes to shit, and we’re starting to suffer the effects of that now,” she says. “The natural environment is where we get all our resources from, every single thing that we use comes from nature.”

But this time, Fleming’s vote is no longer a sure thing. She’s firmly focused on the calibre of the individual candidate, rather than the party they represent. This voter is demanding action.

“Whether they’re a party member or an independent doesn’t matter to me,” she says. “I want someone who’s there for the values of the things that matter rather than the power and the politics and scoring points off each other. I’m so looking for change. It’s about bloody time.”

Fleming is disappointed in Chisholm’s sitting member, Gladys Liu, for “consistently voting against everything to do with fast-tracking strategies to cope with global warming and the climate crisis”.

She feels let down by decisions that have caused irreversible damage to nature in the Chisholm electorate — famous for its natural reserves — and across Victoria. When she moved to leafy Blackburn, Fleming was amazed by the wildlife that still inhabited the area, and is dismayed at the toll increasing development is taking. She recently protested the removal of an old growth tree and says her complaint was passed from one local authority to the next without result.

The combination of her ADHD diagnosis and being on the autism spectrum, she explains, makes it hard for her to maintain cycles of fruitless correspondence, leaving her more disheartened and concerned for the environment.

Fleming wants to see a shift in focus in Australia’s next government, from big businesses to the little guy. “Corporations have so much power… the big business end of town [is] swaying politics.

“It’s often the same people or the same companies getting richer and richer [whereas] at the bottom end, people are [struggling more].”

Few politicians go to the polls advocating higher taxes, but Fleming would be happy to see policies that required wealthy people pay more to help those in need. Adding dental health care to Medicare would be a good start, she says.