Australian Greens co-founder Drew Hutton has quit the party in disgust, despite winning a costly legal battle to have his life membership reinstated.
Mr Hutton, 79, tendered his resignation late on Wednesday complaining that the “party left me” after he was raked over the coals for challenging its policies on transgender rights.
The Greens’ Queensland division fired a parting shot, saying it was saddened to see anyone giving voice to “billionaire-funded talking points that just seek to divide people”, further angering Mr Hutton.
He wrote in his letter of resignation: “As the party’s founder here in Queensland, it grieves me to have to do this but I feel I have no choice. I still believe in green politics but I feel the party has left me.”
Mr Hutton is now exploring how to set up a new “network” to endorse progressive independent candidates at the next federal election who would compete for the Greens’ vote.
After founding the Queensland Greens in 1991, Mr Hutton worked alongside his friend, Bob Brown, to set up the Australian Greens a year later. He remains an elder statesman of green politics in Australia, having also established the Lock the Gate movement to stop miners encroaching on productive farm lands.
He fell out bitterly with his home division in 2022 when he took to Facebook to decry “authoritarian and anti-democratic” disciplinary action that had been taken against feminist members of the Greens for questioning the party’s pro-trans positions.
Mr Hutton was cited for failing to expunge from the social media thread comments held to be offensive and in breach of party rules. The Queensland Greens’ constitution and arbitration committee found that while he had not personally denigrated transgender women, he did provide a platform for others to express transphobic views. Mr Hutton vehemently rejected this.
His membership of the party was suspended, triggering a stand-off as he appealed the finding against him. In July last year, the Greens’ state council upheld his expulsion, prompting him to speak out in The Australian against an “intolerant transgender and queer cult” that, he said, had hijacked the party.
Mr Hutton launched legal action in the Queensland Supreme Court and was vindicated when the Greens’ lawyers found he had been denied natural justice by the party’s internal processes. The Queensland Greens capitulated in March in an out-of-court settlement that restored his membership and paid $55,000 towards his legal costs.
Source: Subscribe to The Australian | Newspaper home delivery, website, iPad, iPhone & Android apps