the Greens must be scraping the bottom of the barrel to get candidates like this one.




Quote:

Frank wrote on Apr 29^th, 2025 at 9:20am:



The “old man” of the Australian Greens, Drew Hutton, has denounced as a “cult” the party he helped found, after being expelled for speaking his mind on transgender rights.

The Greens’ state council in Queensland on Sunday voted overwhelmingly to reject Mr Hutton’s appeal against the termination of his membership over a series of Facebook posts and comments about the party’s pro-trans platform – despite support from co-founder Bob Brown and another former federal leader in Christine Milne.

“Basically a cult has taken over the Greens,” the outraged 78-year-old told The Australian. “This is a deeply authoritarian cult that is opposed to any debate or any free speech on issues of gender. These people would expel Bob Brown if he said anything they disagreed with.”

The brutal handling of such an elder statesman of the party will fire longstanding internal tensions between “deep green” environment-focused traditionalists and the leftist “watermelon” Greens who prioritise social change.

It comes after Iranian-born Sydney local councillor Tina Kordrostami quit the Greens last week over its failure to condemn the repressive Islamic regime in Tehran and terrorist groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah.

In an impassioned address to the closed-door state council meeting in Brisbane, Mr Hutton defended his right to free speech and warned the Greens would become a “dogmatic, authoritarian organisation” with no future if dissenters were silenced.

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Mr Hutton said at least 40 other members had been forced out over the explosive gender issue but he refused to be worn down “until I got sick of the whole thing and resigned, as had happened to so many other Greens”.

He said: “There is no reason why different philosophical and policy approaches can’t coexist in the party but it can’t happen with a ‘no debate or you’re out’ approach.

“The way to ensure the welfare of minorities in the organisation is to continually emphasise civility and respect, not to issue ‘no debate’ edicts … If we continue down this path, then today it’s one issue, tomorrow it will be someone kicked out for saying Israel has a right to defend itself; or someone saying we shouldn’t allow people with criminal records into the country called ‘anti-refugee’ and expelled.

“A party like the Greens whose members won’t even stand up for free speech will become a dogmatic, authoritarian organisation which won’t be viable in the long run.”