How the war between ‘watermelons' and ‘tree-Tories' brought down the Greens
Drew Hutton played a crucial role in the formation of the Greens – first in Queensland, then as a co-founder of the national party alongside Bob Brown.
After watching the party lose three of its four House of Representatives seats – including the stunning defeat of leader Adam Bandt, who conceded his seat of Melbourne on Thursday afternoon – Hutton says the party needs to fundamentally rethink the way it communicates with Australian voters.
'The Greens have experimented with what I would call a hyper-militant approach during the last three years,' says Hutton, who was suspended from the Queensland branch in 2023 over a debate over trans rights and free speech.
'I'm a bit of a hyper-militant myself, in many ways, but you need to know when to hold them and when to fold them.
'What will broaden their base is if they lose this terrible way they have of expressing their moral superiority over everyone else and their refusal to talk meaningfully with ordinary Australians.'
Speaking with a candour not available to Greens MPs, who can face misconduct charges for bringing the party into disrepute, Hutton says the Greens suffered from appearing obstructionist by blocking key Labor policies on housing affordability. The Greens' leadership eventually recognised this at the end of last year by waving through Labor's shared equity and built-to-rent policies, despite failing to win any concessions from the government.
'They also overplayed their hand on Gaza and needed to make it a bit clearer they were totally opposed to the politics of Hamas,' Hutton says.
When Hutton, who led the anti-mining Lock the Gate environmental group, officially retired from activism in 2017, Brown hailed him as 'a towering figure in Australian environmental and social politics for the last four decades'.
However, the long-time Greens leader has a diametrically different view of the election results, underlining the challenge the party faces as it ponders its identity in a post-Bandt era.
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