A co-founder of the Australian Greens who was removed from the party over an online debate on trans people has accused the party of tolerating no dissent on the issue that has caused the expulsion of dozens of “good environmentalists”.
Drew Hutton, 78, co-founded the national Greens alongside Bob Brown in the early 1990s, but was formally ejected from the party at the weekend in part for refusing to delete comments made by others on his Facebook page that the party organisation deemed to be transphobic.
“Over the last decade or so, it would seem that some people have come into the Greens with the determination to take it over,” Hutton told ABC 7.30 on Tuesday night. “To convert it into the sort of party whose, one of whose, main preoccupations is with transgender rights.
“They’ve got an absolutely rigorous determination to stop any dissent from occurring to the things they think are important. The main things they think are important are we get rid of the notion of biological sex and replace it with gender identity.”
While Hutton said he did not have an issue with transgender rights, he criticised campaigners for having “a closed set of beliefs. They have a closed language, which they understand but nobody else does”.
Brown, the first federal leader of the Greens, and his successor Christine Milne, both opposed Hutton’s expulsion from the party.
Greens leader Larissa Waters said the situation was “really sad” given Hutton’s history of environmental activism, but she defended its administrative wing and its stance on trans issues.
Hutton said that a “fairly authoritarian, and aggressive, and unlikeable element” within the Greens was pushing out dozens of “good environmentalists”, many of them women, over their stance on trans issues.
“I’ve been contacted by 40 former members of the Greens. Now, about half of them have been expelled and the other half have been forced out by being subjected to massive complaints. They’ve weaponised the complaints’ system, this faction; this cult, that I call them, has taken over all the key committees in the party, including the disciplinary committees,” Hutton said.