Welcome to the one-party state.
Whatever else has happened in the life and times of Anthony Albanese, this parliamentary week he must feel like an angel has touched him. Labor enjoys near total dominance in numbers. At the same time his political opponents are a mess, united only by a common state of disunity.
Top of today’s list is the Greens and the excruciating, unfinished tale of the founder vs the party. It’s a story so replete with horror that the right-wing media have grabbed hold of it as the ultimate “we told you so” example of the left eating itself alive.
The Greens find themselves in a pickle because somehow it can’t find room within its church for its co-founder, Drew Hutton, once considered a giant of the movement along with Dr Bob Brown. To those outside the Green bubble it is utterly confounding and points to a party in the grip of an identity crisis.
Gender gap
In short, Hutton, once granted life-member status, has been expelled because his position on transgender rights was deemed at odds with the party’s policies. Hutton explains it this way:
“I was expelled from the party, not because I made statements that opposed key beliefs of the Greens but because I refused to censor comments on a couple of Facebook posts that asserted that men were biological males and women were biological females.”
The posts he refers to date back to June 2022. They triggered an internal complaint which landed with the governing body. It found Hutton’s sin was not what he said but what he allowed others to say.
The 78-year-old has received support from Brown, the Greens’ first federal leader, and another former leader, Christine Milne. To no avail. To rub salt into the wounds, he has met a brick wall in the form of new Greens leader Senator Larissa Waters, whose political rise Hutton says he supported. Waters said in a statement that the decision to eject Hutton was made “via the governance processes established by the membership and with a clear outcome. Nobody is above the rules.”:
“Social justice doesn’t stop because of one man’s focus on how other people identify.”
Cult of personality
Hutton in turn has branded the Greens as “authoritarian, aggressive, unlikeable”:
“Like many other party members, I have become a victim of this cult. The cult position is that people are whatever gender they define themselves as and anyone who disagrees with that position must be expelled or, if they are not party members, they should be otherwise cancelled.”
Hutton’s record as an environmental activist stretches back to the days of Joh Bjelke-Petersen, but it seems rules are rules and, naturally, there is no greater sin than being “disrespectful” when it comes to making your point — which is what he is accused of. Nevertheless the Greens continue to plough their furrow, now down to a total of one in the lower house — Elizabeth Watson-Brown, MP for the Queensland seat of Ryan.
Crash … and burn
Over at the Coalition we have what resembles an accident involving multiple vehicles. Wondrously, His Majesty’s opposition presents as having fractures within fractures. The major fracture was between the two parties which briefly went their own way after the May election and now co-exist in an unstable union.
Within the Nationals, former leader Barnaby Joyce is up to his old tricks, this time in cahoots with another former leader, Michael McCormack, known affectionately by the Canberra gang as Micky Mack. Barnaby and Micky Mack have taken a stand on net-zero emissions and see it as their hill to die on in terms of the party’s identity. This threatens to blow up the Nationals’ leadership and the Coalition yet again. The Nats have therefore fractured into N1 and N2.
Then we have the well-documented rolling identity crisis of the Liberal Party and its fracture between the Sussan Ley forces and the Angus Taylor forces, best understood as a split between the conservatives and the Abbott reactionaries. This has produced L1 and L2. If N1 (Barnaby) teamed up with L2 (Taylor) it could be enough to end Ley’s reign — and back to zero again.
I wonder if a green member said publicly we should ditch net zero ideas would they be expelled?
Full discloser, I voted green first preference every election. Handed out how to vote cards etc in seats they would never win. But not now, they have lost the plot in my old mans view support Mr Hutton 100%.
G’day Luke, is it the party that has lost the plot or has someone financed a member or members who have risen in the ranks to steer the party onto the rocks if they were having any electoral success. This is the method used by the powers to be in past history.
All progressive party are infiltrated as an insurance against success, look at the German Greens backflip on war as stated by Baerbock. The issue at the heart of the Greens party is a social issue and not political and the majority are not very concerned but feel for those concerned all the same whilst on the other hand the extremists at both ends of the spectrum see it as a hill to die on whilst Australians in greater numbers become homeless and our government gives away 800million for a few old submarines MAYBE. Then the litany of other problems are left to fester whilst the conversation is being steered away from the major issues onto social issue which legislation will not solve.
Exactly!
Sadly we’re eleven years too late to call in Reg ‘Toecutter’ Withers, to do some quiet pruning of these self serving fops.
The depressing thing about political parties is that they are all very good at wasting their political capital in internal divisions and stupid behaviour.
At present Labor is sitting pretty but that is unlikely to last, especially given the size of the class of 2025 and their urgency for the government to set Australia on a bolder trajectory.
At the next election I expect we will see a bigger shift towards teals and independents.
Sadly the chaotic stupidity of the LNP and the internal bickering of the Greens is only giving Abalone more rope to do nothing much but fiddle at the margins and invent new language to give the impression of action.
The’angel’ that has touched Albo is an evil bastard.
You’re not wrong!
78 year old.
You clearly have the credentials to be on the Greens Central Committee.
For the majority of my (long) adult life the National Party has been part of the government of this country. It has held multiple Ministerial portfolios and its leader has been the Deputy Prime Minister and, on occasions the acting PM. All of this pursuant to a secret agreement between the two Coalition partners that we the public are not allowed to see. This extraordinary privilege is granted to a party that got 3.8% of the vote at the last election (plus an unquantifiable little bit more because of the LNP vote in Queensland), and whose representation in seats is skewed courtesy of the rural gerrymander. The fact that such a dysfunctional rabble can wield this sort of power is nothing short of a disgrace, and a stain on the quality of democracy in this country.
👏👏👏
Well said!
Porker Joyce, Matt Canavan and Piggy eyes LittlePride and their aggressive anti renewables policy will hopefully keep the LNP in opposition for many years.
100% this
Nailed it. It’s not only undemocratic but a recipe for corruption.
Rural gerrymander? I don’t support the Nationals, but the reason they get lower house representation is that their voters are geographically concentrated, so the party can get over half the votes in some rural electorates. It’s not deliberate manipulation… it’s an artifact of single member electoral systems. The Greens support is equivalent in quantum but distributed around the country. This means they rarely get near the 50%+1 votes needed to win a House seat.
It’s great to watch this unfolding crisis. Couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of blokes who only consider their own interests. I just hope albo takes full advantage and does some daring policies when the enemy are wounded. I will wait to see.
Daring?Albo?Pigs might fly.
No, I suspect that it is the unrepresentative Nationals who still think that they can dictate the agenda.
Couple this with the LNP state government in Queensland and we are watching the climate wreckers in action again.
Cancel a planned wind farm for the Capricorn coast and a pumped hydro and hey presto they have made a planned hydrogen manufacturing plant disappear. Along with a lot of jobs.
Yeah!
I don’t know what the fuss is about; this is not the first time someone has been expelled from a party as a result of promoting views contrary to Party policies. You may as well not have a party if any views are acceptable. Whilst saying this, I have a lot of respect for Drew. I knew him for a time in the past when I was a fellow member of the South Brisbane branch of the Greens.
He doesn’t have views contrary to party policy. He just allowed others to express contrary views on his socials without censoring them.
That’s what he did. What Greens bureaucrats did was worse. Tried to keep everything secret, so they can control the narrative. Somewhere along the way, some quite sinister ‘rules’ have got into the mix. Perfect for people to eject members whose views they dislike, perfect to dispose of competitors. Secrecy is evil. From the glimpses we have of Labor and the Coalition, it’s no different over there.
he lived across the road from me in West End (Brisbane) through the 80s
This is a rare occasion where I disagree with an editorial position made by this publication.
It would have behooved you to shine a closer light on the comments Hutton actually made, which, according to the ABC, included transphobic language and claims that trans women were a threat.
That’s not just being disrespectful, and I find it quite easy to side with Waters over Hutton on this topic. Especially given Hutton’s reaction which just screams “I’m not used to being told I’m wrong, and I don’t like it.”
Well said Alex. Transphobia is something I would never vote for.
I found an internal Greens survey of Members and supporters from December 2024. It specifically asked respondents “What their most important issues were for the Election we had in May.
It’s interesting that it does not mention gender identity at all.
It’s hard to understand why a political party that wants to be a mainstream alternative to the existing political structure would spend time and effort on expelling a founding Member of the Greens Party for thought crimes when the alleged crime is of no particular importance to Greens supporters.
https://greens.org.au/magazine/2024-greens-supporter-survey-results-are
Whether or not you agree, maybe it is about principles over numbers.
Thought crime is a totally abhorrent principle. It’s totally subjective and only leads to authoritarianism.
Good luck convincing Australian voters that the unknown gatekeepers of the Greens Party have values coinciding with mainstream Australian voters.
There are many principles. We make choices. If you don’t like my choices, make your case. Don’t gag me! Don’t punish me.
New members of a political party or perhaps a bowling club, don’t necessarily take the time to study and appreciate and value, the historic contribution to an organisation that previous members have made. Possibly because they don’t care anyway.
Drew a Giant of the environmental movement should be lauded forever in the history of the Greens. Can understand why the Greens have plummeted in electoral support. Go Drew hold your head up high.
Drew a true friend of Gloucester in the opposition against CSG & expansion of Coal Mining in Gloucester.
I have found with the Greens you need to be as pure as the snow to be a ‘good’ member. I was a member of the Greens because of my concern for the environment. To expel a founding member reflects poorly on the party. From what I saw and read Drew Hutton supports LGBTQ rights he was just not pure enough for some. It appears that there are Greens members who, like Liberal Party members, can’t read the room.
THe leader larrisa waters and other greens want a republic well you can have donald trump and their leader maruen fraqui is a left wing racist bigot go figure why they lost votes and are now a senate party
If only the Greens could concentrate on the issues that really matter, climate change for a start, instead of silly talk about whether men are women or vice versa – who cares?. Maybe then people might start to vote for them again.
One and all. Be careful what you wish for!
Drew is part of the old Greens, new Greens much broader based and younger people are very inclusive of people they see have been treated discriminatory.
The Party like all Parties have to evolve. And Party solidarity is what makes a Party.
I think Drew has forgotten there is no absolute right to say what you like without blowback. In my opinion he enabled others to be disrespectful and discriminatory. Not what you expect from a past leader. He also spoke some social conservative views that you’d expect to here from the conservatives. You reap what you sow.
holy transphobia, batman
Interesting, yes, the parties that, should be ‘holding the Government to account’ seem more focused on internal workings than doing that. I am one of those hopeful that the Albo led government will take advantage of the angel’s touch and take some bad action that will benefit all Australians. While I am fully supportive of trans rights, it seems the Greens will not give to parity elders a level of respect which can recongise that sometimes they might disagree with policies and practices. If Labor had adopted that stance we would have lost Paul Keating a number of times, a man who I don’t always agree with but recognise his contribution to paving the way for the party we have today. (I know that means s one reading this will say what a pity that is). On the other hand the Lib/Nats coalition seem intent on demonstrating that there does exist significant differences between the major parties.