Party supporters attend the Greens national campaign launch at Black Hops Brewery in Brisbane, Australia on May 16, 2022. Dan Peled/Getty Images
Drew Hutton, co-founder of the Australian Greens, says a “cult mentality” has taken over his now-former party after he was officially expelled for a social media post regarding transgenders.
The party’s Constitution and Arbitration Committee’s (CAC) moved to expel Hutton on May 30, following a suspension in July 2023 because he refused to delete comments left under a Facebook post of his.
On July 20, he attended the Queensland Greens’ state council meeting to appeal the decision, but members voted overwhelmingly to reject his appeal, with a 75–23 vote.
The 23 votes in support included Greens founder Bob Brown and the party’s first female leader, Christine Milne.
Facebook Post Controversy
The issue stems from a 2022 Facebook post, where Hutton weighed in on the decision to annul the election of the Victorian branch’s state convenor Linda Gale and a New South Wales member Anna Kerr over their supposed transphobic comments.
Hutton labelled these moves “authoritarian and antidemocratic” and his post generated heated discussion, some of which he himself deemed “hurtful and disrespectful.”
