The Greens rank and file in Victoria rebelled after the division’s newly elected convener was sacked in 2022 for urging a rethink of its pro-transgender rights policies, with hundreds of disgruntled members demanding free speech inside the party.
The so-called Docklands Declaration, affirming that “no issue” should be off-limits for debate, has been endorsed by 373 Greens members since it was uploaded, a credible response given they were required to put their names down.
The woman at the centre of that row, Linda Gale, on Wednesday called on new federal leader Larissa Waters to intervene in the widening row over the purging of party members and office bearers who don’t toe the line on trans rights.
Tensions that flared over Ms Gale’s dismissal came to a head this week when Greens co-founder Drew Hutton was expelled by the Queensland division for standing up to the “transgender and queer cult” that, he said, had seized control of the party.
Ms Gale said Senator Waters should “have taken an interest” in Mr Hutton’s fate, given his stature as a founding father of the Greens.
The 78-year-old set up the party in 1992 alongside his friend, Bob Brown, the inaugural leader.
Dr Brown and another former federal Greens leader, Christine Milne, have called for Mr Hutton’s life membership to be reinstated but Senator Waters has refused to buy in, saying his expulsion was an independent decision of the party and “no one is above the rules”.
Source: Give us free speech: Greens rank and file’s ultimatum