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The man who carried Greens from his living-room floor to floor of Parliament House

Activist, environmentalist and Greens co-founder Drew Hutton, now 75, was feeling pretty good about life and his role in upending Australian politics when In Queensland found him. John McCarthy reports

 

May 24, 2022, updated May 24, 2022
Drew Hutton suffered countless electoral defeats, including one state election where the Greens polled less than 1 per cent of the vote, to help establish the party as a political force. Photo: Lock the Gate.

Drew Hutton suffered countless electoral defeats, including one state election where the Greens polled less than 1 per cent of the vote, to help establish the party as a political force. Photo: Lock the Gate.

“I’m sitting here looking over a lake and feeling very at peace with the world,’’ he said after an election result that saw a Green wave hit Australian politics and wash away the Morrison Government.

But it has always been this good for the Greens. There were false starts, internal bickering, factional brawls, a lack of money and support and even doubt whether there was a need for a political party.

If postal votes fall their way, the federal election result could mean three Queensland Greens in the lower house and another Queensland senator. The so-called teal candidates who ran on climate change and integrity issues in southern states could win another handful lower house seats.

“I expected it. I didn’t expect that they (The Greens) would do as well, but I thought Max Chandler-Mather (Griffith) would get in,’’ Hutton said.

While last weekend’s success surprised many, Hutton said the Green wave had been building for several years.

“It was the fires (2019) and floods that sealed it for a lot of people,’’ he said.

“Especially when you have people like fire commissioners saying it time to take strong action on climate change.’’

He said a major factor in the federal election was Labor’s reluctance to engage on climate issues. In fact, the biggest consequence of the election –  the so-called Green wave – came despite climate change not getting a mention by either of the main parties.

“Labor opened the door for the Greens because they said they would say yes to every coal mine. The Greens said if you do that we will go for you … and they did.’’

It wasn’t always such a good outcome for the Greens, which Hutton founded in Brisbane back in 1984-85, well before the Australian Greens. There were a few false starts.

“Most of them were started by me and fizzled out because they couldn’t get support,’’ he said.

There was also antagonism in the early days and a lot of environmentalists were even opposed to a political party forming.

In the 1992 state election, the Greens won a total vote of less than 1 per cent of the vote and Hutton, who stood several times for Brisbane Lord Mayor as well as in state elections never succeeded, although some seats polled well for the party, even back then and Hutton said the area around the federal seat of Ryan, which was won by the Greens’ Elizabeth Watson-Brown, was always “very Green”.

The 1992 campaign budget was $27,000 and the entire strategy was devised on his loungeroom floor. Colleague Malcolm Lewis camped out in the loungeroom for the entire campaign.

“Our volunteers never had enough how-to-vote cards so they had to scramble through the rubbish bins to recover the ones that had been thrown away in order to hand them again. They would do that up to a dozen times during the day,’’ he said.

But two things played in Hutton’s favour: He’s a long-distance runner so he knows there is a long game at play. He is also a historian by profession.

“I understood there were certain factors that impel change and environment was going to be one of them,’’ he told In Queensland. 

“I always thought we would be successful and that we were doing the right thing. Never doubted it.’’

He said the party in Queensland was built by grassroots campaigning, not unlike the strategy used to win the three inner Brisbane seats. In the early days he travelled the length of Queensland three times with his wife, Libby, spruiking in main streets.

“If there was enough support there we would start a branch,’’ he said.

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Along with Bob Brown, Hutton is recognised as a co-founder of the Australian Greens which started after Hutton flew to Tasmania to have a dinner with Bob Brown in 1990. One of them (he can’t remember who) suggested it was time to give it a crack.

It wasn’t a peaceful start.  

There was also a lot of division about where the party should head, and even whether a political party was necessary.

There was “an awful lot of fighting, arguing and screaming and yelling.

“In fact, the environment movement in those days was really quite opposed to us. They were saying Labor did everything we wanted and some were saying we should get inside the Labor Party and change it.

“My argument was no, if you get inside Labor they will change you.’’

“I came out out of the libertarian movement, the radical democratic background, but others were from the anti-uranium and peace movement. We were never a single-issue party, but the environment was always our starting point.’’

Hutton has also been critical of The Greens. In Facebook posts earlier this year he stirred a hornet’s nest by suggesting things needed to change.

“It was never critical of their policies. They have all the policies necessary for the society we have to build. But they have trouble communicating with anyone outside the tertiary educated, younger people. They need the ability to do that.

“We can also be a bit morally superior sometimes and need to just take a look at ourselves.

“We need to meet people on their terms.’’

 

 

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