Have the Greens lost their way as co-founder expelled

Australia Broadcast Center

6 days ago

SARAH FERGUSON, PRESENTER: Drew Hutton, welcome to 7.30.
DREW HUTTON, GREENS CO-FOUNDER: Hello, Sarah.
SARAH FERGUSON: What do you mean that the Greens have been taken over by a cult?
DREW HUTTON: Well, there are plenty of really good people in the Greens, and I still identify as having green politics, always have had, always will have.
But over the last decade or so, it would seem that some people have come into the Greens with the determination to take it over, to convert it into the sort of party, one of whose main preoccupations is with transgender rights.
Now I've got no problem with transgender rights, but what they've done is they have a closed set of beliefs. They have a closed language, which they understand, but nobody else does. And they've got an absolutely rigorous determination to stop any dissent from occurring to the things that they think are important.
And the main things they think are important are that we get rid of the notion of biological sex and replace it with gender identity.
SARAH FERGUSON: You say that this change in the greens has made the party, in your words, 'weird' and 'unlikable'. Does it also make Greens members unelectable?
DREW HUTTON: Well, we'll have to see Sarah. I don't know whether it makes them unelectable or not, but I do know…
SARAH FERGUSON: Well, you say this has been going on for 10 years, so presumably you have got some evidence. So is it actually having an impact on Green's electoral support?
DREW HUTTON: I think it is. Look, there is a clear need for a party like the Greens or for a political force in there that is saying the sorts of things that the Greens should be saying.
But there is also this fairly authoritarian and aggressive and unlikeable element to the Greens that I think people in the community are responding to.
They do acknowledge that there's a role for the Greens, and I acknowledge that too but the fact that there is an element of authoritarianism creeping into the party, a disdain for freedom of speech, which is exemplified by the treatment of me and I might add by dozens of other members of the Greens, mostly women, mostly good conservationists, have been forced out of the party.
SARAH FERGUSON: How many people do you say have been forced out of the party on this issue of Greens support for transgender rights?
DREW HUTTON: 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 weaponized the complaint system. This faction, this cult that I call them, has taken over all the key committees in the party, including the disciplinary committees. So, members are hauled before these committees as I was, and in a bit of a star chamber, they're expelled.
Now, a lot of people don't even want to go through that process because it is just so distressing and traumatic, so they just leave the party.
We've lost some of the best talent, the best conservationists, best environmental campaigners in the party have left because they've been subject to this really bad treatment by this faction of the Greens.
SARAH FERGUSON: Let me ask you this, the party, the Greens party has a policy on transgender issues, a policy determined by the members of the Greens, that people have a right to their self-identified gender. Doesn't the party have a right to uphold its policy positions?
DREW HUTTON: Absolutely and actually I agree with that position. The people do have a right, should have a right to identify, if they want to identify as another sex, that's fine as another gender.
But what I disagree with vehemently is the way that anybody who actually voices any dissent with that policy and do so from a credible position, that is that there is such a thing as biological sex and there are two sexes, is forced out of the party.
I mean, that's extremely authoritarian and what I worry about is that there is a very doctrinaire mentality developing in the Greens, especially with regard to this issue. Not only this issue, but especially this one and if there is this attitude of there must be no debate on this issue, then that's a bit of a slippery slope.
Then you start moving into other areas where there's no debate. You can't have a debate about this because it might offend somebody or it might…
SARAH FERGUSON: Let me put this question to you in a different way. And of course, we have Larissa Waters on so she can defend whether or not the party was indeed doctrinaire, or they were engaged in trying to protect people from harm but she can answer that question. My question to you is, has the Greens Party just changed, and you are unwilling to see the party evolve?
DREW HUTTON: Oh, look, I accept that every new generation is going to give any political party, and the Greens included, its own stamp. That's okay. I was no longer active in the Greens. I'm a life member. I was a life member after 2009. I went on to form the Lock the Gate movement after that.
So I really haven't taken any role in the Greens, and I didn't want to. All I wanted to do was keep my membership and go hand out how to vote cards every three years or so, and this came at me.
All I did was argue that there should be free speech on this issue, and the next minute I've got the party coming at me. So, I was simply defending myself and defending the issue of free speech.
SARAH FERGUSON: Drew Hutton, thank you very much indeed for joining us.
DREW HUTTON: Thank you, Sarah.
SARAH FERGUSON: Leader of the Greens, Larissa Waters, joins me now. Larissa Waters, welcome to 7.30.
SENATOR LARISSA WATERS, GREENS LEADER: Hi, Sarah, thanks for having me.
SARAH FERGUSON: Can I get your response to Drew Hutton's description of your party as authoritarian, aggressive and doctrinaire.
LARISSA WATERS: Well, that's not the experience that I and so many of our other wonderful members have and what's happened in this situation is actually just really sad because a man who spent his life doing really wonderful environmental advocacy has taken this focus on to other matters and it hasn't ended well.
The party went through a process that our members run, our members drive, our volunteers participate in, and that process has concluded, but I want to make sure people know that the Greens are a safe party for trans people. It's a safe place and it will always be.
SARAH FERGUSON: He's describing a party where debate on contentious issues is prevented, not just on this issue. He's saying you have a disdain for free speech. How is the state of free speech inside the Greens? Are people free to express their opinions?
LARISSA WATERS: Yes, and they frequently do, Sarah. You can have a robust debate and there's lots of differences of opinion when party members are actually debating and formulating our policies, but you can do that in a respectful manner and that's what our Code of Conduct...
SARAH FERGUSON: But is that your issue with him, the manner in which he did it or the views he was expressing? Why has he been expelled?
LARISSA WATERS: Look, I wasn't part of that process, Sarah. That was a process that the party ran.
SARAH FERGUSON: You must know the reasons that were underpinned it?
LARISSA WATERS: I haven't read the documentation because here I am in parliament hoping to talk tomorrow about introducing a climate trigger into our environmental laws and fixing the gender inequalities in our tax system amongst other things.
SARAH FERGUSON: Nonetheless, this is a significant figure in the Green movement in this country, the co-founder along with Bob Brown, both Bob Brown and Christine Milne want Drew Hutton to be restored to the party, but you haven't taken the time to read the complaint against him and why he's been expelled?
LARISSA WATERS: Well, like me, they respect his environmental achievements and, you know, I think hard-pressed to find anyone who doesn't feel that way about his contribution over the decades but this was a decision that was reviewed by the party, taken by volunteer party members, many of whom uphold the Code of Conduct on a regular basis. It's not hard to uphold the Code of Conduct.
SARAH FERGUSON: He's got a description there of the way the disciplinary system works in the party. He's calling it committees that come in with a very fixed view, with closed language, closed beliefs. Do you recognise those descriptions?
LARISSA WATERS: Oh, that's not the experience that many others have. It's certainly not the experience that I have had of my party and like I said as the parliamentary leader, my focus here is how we can use the parliament to try to help people and help the planet, and those party matters have been dealt with by our party on the weekend.
SARAH FERGUSON: Is a member of the Greens party free to question the Greens' policy on transgender rights?
LARISSA WATERS: Well, look, parties are involved in, and our members are involved in formulating those very policies and those debates happen on a regular basis.
SARAH FERGUSON: You have a position, are people now free to question the policy that the Greens arrived at?
LARISSA WATERS: Look, it's not obligatory to be a Greens member, people can question what they like and they'll form their own view ...
SARAH FERGUSON: Within the Greens.
LARISSA WATERS: ...on whether those values match their own. And we love involvement in the democratic process.
SARAH FERGUSON: Is that debate allowed within the Greens because that's what he's saying.
LARISSA WATERS: That's the process of policy review that occurs. That process occurs as a matter of course. People have those debates, but you do need to have those debates respectfully and that can be done, and it generally is done.
SARAH FERGUSON: Now, are you saying that Drew Hutton didn't conduct that debate respectfully, is that the issue here?
LARISSA WATERS: I believe that's the basis for which the party upheld the decision.
SARAH FERGUSON: So, you do know something about the decision?
LARISSA WATERS: I believe that's the basis on which the party made the decision.
SARAH FERGUSON: So, the way in which he conducted the debate rather than its, the argument that he was making?
LARISSA WATERS: Look, I think so, Sarah. Like I said, tomorrow I'm introducing a bill to try to fix the climate crisis and wanting the government to look at the gender inequalities in our tax system.
Yeah, these are the things that I'm focused on, trying to actually help people in their daily lives.
SARAH FERGUSON: Will you speak to Drew Hutton about what's happened?
LARISSA WATERS: Um, look, I think I'll send a message to him perhaps through this program that we really respect the contribution that he's made to environmental advocacy in the past, and like many others, I'm sad that his focus isn't on those issues.
SARAH FERGUSON: Is he welcome to come back to the party if he changes the ways he conducts his debate on this issue?
LARISSA WATERS: It's not up to me and he may not wish to do that, but I wish him no harm.
SARAH FERGUSON: Let's talk about this new parliament, just underway today. The government's round-table next month, I think your critical goal is women's economic empowerment. Now the Greens are not invited in the summit. How are you going to drive your desire for that to be central in the debate around tax reform if you're not there.
LARISSA WATERS: Well, thankfully Sarah, we have got the sole balance of power in the Senate and so if the government wants a progressive pathway to do good things to help people, then here we are in the Senate saying we're ready to work with you.
And one thing we do want them to focus on, either at the round-table or through legislation, both, is the fact that as a working parent, when you seek to go back to work, many women are finding, and finding a woman who hasn't experienced this, that when you go back to work, if you're working day two, three, four, the more days you work, the less you earn because of a weird combination of income tax, family tax benefits, child care subsidies, student debt repayment - this combination of tax settings that when put together for a secondary income earner, generally a mum who wants to go back to the workforce when she's ready to do that, it punishes women and it further sets women up for poverty in later life, and I think that is a gender inequity in our tax system and it is a productivity measure as well.
The government could fix that and we're going to engage with them to try to do that.
SARAH FERGUSON: And just briefly we know one of the early priorities of the government is going to be the government's proposed change to taxation of large superannuation balances over $3 million. Will you support them in the Senate to pass that legislation?
LARISSA WATERS: Well, we'll be having some good discussions with the government on that matter and I'm optimistic of a good outcome there, but I'll have those discussions in private.
SARAH FERGUSON: Larissa Waters, thank you very much indeed for joining us.
LARISSA WATERS: Thanks for having me.