In an election focused on climate change, the Greens should be surging. But pressure is building inside the beleaguered party

It’s a climate change election but the political party with the utmost ambition on climate – yes, the Greens – is somehow on the outer. Flagging in the polls, cold-shouldered by Labor, the Greens have spent the campaign jostling elbows with a bunch of high-profile independents in the inner cities and battling the alt-right in the Senate.

Greens leader Richard Di Natale gave a rousing speech to the National Press Club on Thursday, pumped after an Easter family road trip from Melbourne to Brisbane with his predecessor Bob Brown’s Stop Adani convoy which will finish in Canberra on Saturday. Di Natale rattled off a list of impressive achievements in his first full term as leader of the Australian Greens, including paving the way on marriage equality, the banking and disability royal commissions, Medevac laws and a national anti-corruption body. Electorally, however, there is little sign the Greens are about to reap the rewards of its “thought leadership” among the parties.