Booted from party, Greens co-founder vows to fight on
Drew Hutton, who helped found the Greens in 1991, was expelled from the party on Sunday in part for refusing to delete comments made by others on his Facebook page deemed to be transphobic.
Hutton, 78, told this masthead he was considering his legal options and urged new federal party leader Larissa Waters to intervene.
'She should be using her stature to say to the Australian Greens, no more expulsions, no more bullying of green people who have given sometimes decades to the party over this gender issue,' he said.
'And secondly, she should be calling for inquiry into all of the processes of the Greens and to ensure that the principle of democracy is embedded in them.
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'Now she's got to show that she's got the character and the courage to do that – if she doesn't do it, the Greens risk becoming, in the view of most Australian electors, just weird and unlikable.'
Waters backed her party's processes, which she said showed 'nobody is above the rules'.
'Good governance means that people can put their case forward, including the right to appeal a decision. In this case the appeal was unsuccessful,' she said.
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ABC News
2 hours ago
- ABC News
Victorian government housing agency hires home-buyer as part of public housing demolition plans
The Victorian government's housing agency is hiring an internal home-buyer as it works to find new homes for residents displaced by its controversial plan to redevelop Melbourne's public housing towers. The successful candidate will work with Homes Victoria to identify properties that are suitable for leasing or purchase, "including bulk and off-the-plan purchases". They will also have a thorough understanding of the property market and transaction process, according to a job advertisement that closes tomorrow. Homes Victoria regularly purchases and leases properties to add to the state's social housing stock, but the job ad's mention of a "high priority Tower Relocations program" suggests acquisitions could scale up as the 44 towers are progressively retired over the next 25 years. While the move will likely help residents remain close to their existing communities, the government's critics say it could add more pressure to the strained property market. "Our concern is the government obviously has absolutely no plan for how they are going to house 10,000 people that they are relocating in the middle of a housing crisis," the Victorian Greens' housing spokesperson, Gabrielle de Vietri, said. "The government has said that it's simply too expensive for them to refurbish these public housing towers. "Yet what they are engaging in is an incredibly expensive and inefficient process of buying up and head-leasing private homes to move public housing residents into." The government has been under fire over the effect its plan to progressively redevelop the ageing towers, which generally house hundreds of people, will have on housing demand across the city. It is unclear how many private market homes could be required over the life of the plan, with many tenants likely to be moved into existing social housing properties. A Homes Victoria spokesperson declined to say how many private market homes would be required across the first three towers to be retired — in North Melbourne and Flemington — but the government has previously revealed four dwellings were leased and 16 dwellings purchased in surrounding suburbs in the first half of the year. It is understood the homes were acquired at market value. The Real Estate Institute of Victoria also said it was aware of a government initiative to purchase private dwellings for social housing, but its members had not reported any significant activity in that area. "Increasing supply through new builds is the most effective way to address affordability and availability over the long term," a spokesperson said. "However, we acknowledge that in some circumstances, the time frames associated with new developments may not meet urgent demand, and the use of existing stock may be a necessary interim measure." Meanwhile, the Victorian Greens say they were recently contacted by a constituent claiming a real estate agency working on behalf of the government had approached multiple owners in their inner-west Melbourne apartment block about potential sales. The movement comes as Melbourne's overburdened property market suffers from a citywide vacancy rate of 1.4 per cent, a near-record low according to property research body Cotality. Head of research Tim Lawless said additional demand against this backdrop of low supply would generally place upward pressure on rents and property prices in the inner-city suburbs where the towers were located. "I suppose from a positive perspective, it's good to see the state government looking after those tenants in government-owned properties and looking to relocate them," he said. "I think the challenge is actually going to be finding enough housing to ensure those people have a quality lifestyle and a reasonable level of comfort." The tower refurbishment plan is the focus of a current parliamentary inquiry that has heard evidence from distressed residents, legal centres and housing groups, as well as a resident-led class action that was dismissed but is currently being appealed. However, the government argues the ageing towers have reached the end of their useful life and do not meet modern standards of design, comfort and energy efficiency. It has promised to increase social housing by 10 per cent at each site when the estates are rebuilt, with a mix of social and private market housing. More than 55,500 households were waiting to enter public housing in March this year, while a further 10,500 existing tenants had applied for transfers.
Sydney Morning Herald
3 hours ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
The wealthy have been shielded from Britain's big problem
London: Fury swept across Britain's social media five days ago when residents of a wealthy part of London heard of government plans to move hundreds of asylum seekers into a hotel in their neighbourhood. Within hours, activists were posting videos from outside the hotel to call on politicians to send the outsiders away. The hotel in Canary Wharf, where luxury apartments tower over old docklands, was soon surrounded by protesters and police – turning it into the latest flashpoint in Britain's ferocious argument about refugees and migration. 'I can now confirm that the Britannia International Hotel in Canary Wharf has been handed over for use by asylum seekers and refugees,' posted Lee Nallalingham, a resident of Tower Hamlets, the council area that includes Canary Wharf, in London's east. 'That hotel is a five-minute walk from my daughter's nursery. It's surrounded by other nurseries and primary schools. And yet nobody asked local parents what we thought. Why are they being placed in one of the most expensive areas of London, next to schools, while locals can't get housing, safety, or basic services? 'Where's the consultation? Where's the protection for local families? Once again – no answers. Just secrecy and silence.' There was just one problem. Nallalingham wrongly asserted that people were being moved to Canary Wharf from an asylum seeker hotel in the town of Epping Forest, the scene of riots on Sunday night when protesters hurled flares, eggs and rocks at police. This was inflammatory because of the fury over the hotel in Epping, just outside London. But it was not true. Nallalingham was not caught up in the details. He is the chairman of the Reform UK branch in the Tower Hamlets area and was spreading the word for a purpose. Reform UK, the party led by right-wing politician Nigel Farage, is making big gains by tapping into grievances over the economy, gender politics, migration and refugees. So the outrage over asylum hotels is turning into another powerful campaign for Farage and Reform – and a disaster for Labour Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, who once promised to shut them down. The Australian parallels are inescapable when Farage uses a simple rallying cry – 'stop the boats' – to build support. Another Reform UK politician, Lee Anderson, stood outside the Canary Wharf hotel to do a video for the X social media site about the imminent arrival of asylum seekers. Farage reposted this to his 2.2 million followers. The message helped to foment a street protest within hours. So what was really happening? Yes, the hotel was being prepared to house asylum seekers. No, they were not coming from Epping Forest. The British department charged with border security, the Home Office, made it clear there were no asylum seekers actually in the Canary Wharf hotel while the protesters stood outside. But it confirmed it had reserved more than 400 beds at the hotel to prepare for further asylum seeker arrivals in the weeks ahead. And the deeper truth? Britain is struggling with the weekly arrival of people on inflatable boats who cross the English Channel in the hope of gaining refugee status and finding work in a wealthy country. There were 60 people last Sunday, for instance, and 132 on Wednesday. On some days, there are none. Over the first six months of this year there were 19,982, according to a tally by Reuters based on public data. That was a 50 per cent increase from the same period last year. Starmer blames the previous government for the problem – with good cause, given the Conservatives ruled from 2010 to 2024 without stopping the boats. But Starmer has been in power for a full year. There are no signs that his policies are slowing the arrivals. The wealthy have been mostly shielded from this reality, especially in the finer neighbourhoods of London. Those on the lower rungs of the British class structure, however, have seen it up close when the asylum seekers are housed in their communities. With no end to the arrivals, more hotels are set up – and wealthier neighbourhoods like Canary Wharf take notice. At the same time, the community depends on migrants for essential services: cleaning the London Underground, staffing the supermarket, delivering food, serving at the takeaway. Citizens turn against migrants at the very moment they seem to rely on them more than ever. Inflammatory rhetoric fuels the discontent. Laila Cunningham, a Reform UK councillor on Westminster City Council in the heart of London, berated Labour and the Tories on Wednesday for losing control of the border. 'The Tories let in 6.5 million people over 14 years,' she said. The result, she added: 'Waves of unvetted young men, many of whom do not share our values and show no respect for British women.' Cunningham appeared to be exaggerating. The Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford has tracked the annual intake, based on public data, and its chart shows net migration of about 5 million from June 2012 to June 2024. Even so, the inflow has been running ahead of what the community wants. Public polling highlights the concern. The Migration Observatory reported results from 2023 showing that 52 per cent of British adults want migration to be reduced, while 14 per cent want it increased. Another 22 per cent want it to stay the same, while the remainder were undecided. The concern is not new because objections to migration helped shape the referendum in favour of Brexit. What has changed is the sense of urgency some voters feel about the challenge. In June 2016, when the voting public chose Brexit, 48 per cent of respondents said migration was an important issue. It fell away for years in public polling, but now it's back. It climbed to 38 per cent last October. Starmer is feeling the pressure to find a fix. 'We will stop at nothing to tackle illegal migration,' he said on Wednesday. In fact, there is a shortage of ideas to discourage the arrivals. Australia sent asylum seekers to remote islands and turned boats around in the Indian Ocean. The UK has not copied the Australian approach in the narrow confines of the English Channel, so it has to devise its own solution. The asylum hotels are part of a broader 'dispersal' policy for asylum seekers to spread them across the country. There were 38,000 asylum seekers in hotels at the end of last year, with another 65,000 in 'dispersal' housing such as private flats or hostels run by companies for the government. This is very different to the Australian policy, with so much attention on Manus Island and Nauru. In Britain, the experience is intensely local. The Epping Forest riots took place after the community reacted to an incident between an asylum seeker and a local girl. The man, Hadush Gerberslasie Kebatu, 38, from Ethiopia, was charged with three counts of sexual assault, one count of inciting a girl to engage in sexual activity and one count of harassment without violence. He denied all the offences when he appeared in court on July 10. Another case led to a conviction five days ago. Moffat Konofilia, 48, an asylum seeker from Solomon Islands, approached a girl, 17, on the beach at Weymouth in southern England in December 2023. A magistrate found him guilty of one count of sexual assault. When these cases make headlines, the community reacts. And Farage can turn that reaction into a mushroom cloud. Starmer and his ministers are trying to find new ways to slow the arrivals. They have a deal with French President Emmanuel Macron to return some people to France. They have announced sanctions on those in the asylum seeker trade. Individuals face financial sanctions, and the Chinese company that advertises its inflatable boats to people smugglers will be banned from doing business in the UK. Loading The riots over the past week have put a public face on the immense strain on Britain. It is an angry face, sometimes covered in a balaclava, unleashing rage at those in authority. The rioters do not speak for Britain because the data shows that many people want mercy shown to those who cross the Channel. But the public mood has turned against welcoming asylum seekers. Times are tough for many communities, and voters have reason to feel aggrieved. Every asylum seeker arrival can add to the sense that the system is broken. Every crime can add to the pressure. Even a tweet might set off a riot.
The Age
3 hours ago
- The Age
The wealthy have been shielded from Britain's big problem
London: Fury swept across Britain's social media five days ago when residents of a wealthy part of London heard of government plans to move hundreds of asylum seekers into a hotel in their neighbourhood. Within hours, activists were posting videos from outside the hotel to call on politicians to send the outsiders away. The hotel in Canary Wharf, where luxury apartments tower over old docklands, was soon surrounded by protesters and police – turning it into the latest flashpoint in Britain's ferocious argument about refugees and migration. 'I can now confirm that the Britannia International Hotel in Canary Wharf has been handed over for use by asylum seekers and refugees,' posted Lee Nallalingham, a resident of Tower Hamlets, the council area that includes Canary Wharf, in London's east. 'That hotel is a five-minute walk from my daughter's nursery. It's surrounded by other nurseries and primary schools. And yet nobody asked local parents what we thought. Why are they being placed in one of the most expensive areas of London, next to schools, while locals can't get housing, safety, or basic services? 'Where's the consultation? Where's the protection for local families? Once again – no answers. Just secrecy and silence.' There was just one problem. Nallalingham wrongly asserted that people were being moved to Canary Wharf from an asylum seeker hotel in the town of Epping Forest, the scene of riots on Sunday night when protesters hurled flares, eggs and rocks at police. This was inflammatory because of the fury over the hotel in Epping, just outside London. But it was not true. Nallalingham was not caught up in the details. He is the chairman of the Reform UK branch in the Tower Hamlets area and was spreading the word for a purpose. Reform UK, the party led by right-wing politician Nigel Farage, is making big gains by tapping into grievances over the economy, gender politics, migration and refugees. So the outrage over asylum hotels is turning into another powerful campaign for Farage and Reform – and a disaster for Labour Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, who once promised to shut them down. The Australian parallels are inescapable when Farage uses a simple rallying cry – 'stop the boats' – to build support. Another Reform UK politician, Lee Anderson, stood outside the Canary Wharf hotel to do a video for the X social media site about the imminent arrival of asylum seekers. Farage reposted this to his 2.2 million followers. The message helped to foment a street protest within hours. So what was really happening? Yes, the hotel was being prepared to house asylum seekers. No, they were not coming from Epping Forest. The British department charged with border security, the Home Office, made it clear there were no asylum seekers actually in the Canary Wharf hotel while the protesters stood outside. But it confirmed it had reserved more than 400 beds at the hotel to prepare for further asylum seeker arrivals in the weeks ahead. And the deeper truth? Britain is struggling with the weekly arrival of people on inflatable boats who cross the English Channel in the hope of gaining refugee status and finding work in a wealthy country. There were 60 people last Sunday, for instance, and 132 on Wednesday. On some days, there are none. Over the first six months of this year there were 19,982, according to a tally by Reuters based on public data. That was a 50 per cent increase from the same period last year. Starmer blames the previous government for the problem – with good cause, given the Conservatives ruled from 2010 to 2024 without stopping the boats. But Starmer has been in power for a full year. There are no signs that his policies are slowing the arrivals. The wealthy have been mostly shielded from this reality, especially in the finer neighbourhoods of London. Those on the lower rungs of the British class structure, however, have seen it up close when the asylum seekers are housed in their communities. With no end to the arrivals, more hotels are set up – and wealthier neighbourhoods like Canary Wharf take notice. At the same time, the community depends on migrants for essential services: cleaning the London Underground, staffing the supermarket, delivering food, serving at the takeaway. Citizens turn against migrants at the very moment they seem to rely on them more than ever. Inflammatory rhetoric fuels the discontent. Laila Cunningham, a Reform UK councillor on Westminster City Council in the heart of London, berated Labour and the Tories on Wednesday for losing control of the border. 'The Tories let in 6.5 million people over 14 years,' she said. The result, she added: 'Waves of unvetted young men, many of whom do not share our values and show no respect for British women.' Cunningham appeared to be exaggerating. The Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford has tracked the annual intake, based on public data, and its chart shows net migration of about 5 million from June 2012 to June 2024. Even so, the inflow has been running ahead of what the community wants. Public polling highlights the concern. The Migration Observatory reported results from 2023 showing that 52 per cent of British adults want migration to be reduced, while 14 per cent want it increased. Another 22 per cent want it to stay the same, while the remainder were undecided. The concern is not new because objections to migration helped shape the referendum in favour of Brexit. What has changed is the sense of urgency some voters feel about the challenge. In June 2016, when the voting public chose Brexit, 48 per cent of respondents said migration was an important issue. It fell away for years in public polling, but now it's back. It climbed to 38 per cent last October. Starmer is feeling the pressure to find a fix. 'We will stop at nothing to tackle illegal migration,' he said on Wednesday. In fact, there is a shortage of ideas to discourage the arrivals. Australia sent asylum seekers to remote islands and turned boats around in the Indian Ocean. The UK has not copied the Australian approach in the narrow confines of the English Channel, so it has to devise its own solution. The asylum hotels are part of a broader 'dispersal' policy for asylum seekers to spread them across the country. There were 38,000 asylum seekers in hotels at the end of last year, with another 65,000 in 'dispersal' housing such as private flats or hostels run by companies for the government. This is very different to the Australian policy, with so much attention on Manus Island and Nauru. In Britain, the experience is intensely local. The Epping Forest riots took place after the community reacted to an incident between an asylum seeker and a local girl. The man, Hadush Gerberslasie Kebatu, 38, from Ethiopia, was charged with three counts of sexual assault, one count of inciting a girl to engage in sexual activity and one count of harassment without violence. He denied all the offences when he appeared in court on July 10. Another case led to a conviction five days ago. Moffat Konofilia, 48, an asylum seeker from Solomon Islands, approached a girl, 17, on the beach at Weymouth in southern England in December 2023. A magistrate found him guilty of one count of sexual assault. When these cases make headlines, the community reacts. And Farage can turn that reaction into a mushroom cloud. Starmer and his ministers are trying to find new ways to slow the arrivals. They have a deal with French President Emmanuel Macron to return some people to France. They have announced sanctions on those in the asylum seeker trade. Individuals face financial sanctions, and the Chinese company that advertises its inflatable boats to people smugglers will be banned from doing business in the UK. Loading The riots over the past week have put a public face on the immense strain on Britain. It is an angry face, sometimes covered in a balaclava, unleashing rage at those in authority. The rioters do not speak for Britain because the data shows that many people want mercy shown to those who cross the Channel. But the public mood has turned against welcoming asylum seekers. Times are tough for many communities, and voters have reason to feel aggrieved. Every asylum seeker arrival can add to the sense that the system is broken. Every crime can add to the pressure. Even a tweet might set off a riot.
