No one should be in any doubt by now that the Greens have long ceased to be an environmental party. The only real question is just how red the inside of the watermelon is. Is it the soft, mushy pink of champagne socialism, or the deep, angry red of violent Marxism?
Ten years ago, the Australian Greens surreptitiously fought the first battle in that war, as the hardcore Stalinists like Lee Rhiannon duked it out with the tree-hugging socialists of Bob Brown. The war is back on in earnest in the safest Greens seat in Victoria. It’s the nosey-nannas versus the ladyboys.
Many members view preselection for the seat about to be vacated by former leader Samantha Ratnam as a fight between longer-serving branch members motivated by social justice and environmental concerns, and younger, more activist members united by LGBTQ and trans-rights policies.
Make no mistake: “LGBTQ and trans-rights” is thinly disguised code for Marxism. Not the classical Marxism of Marx and Engels, who had little to say (and none of it in the least complimentary) about all things poovish, but the neo-Marxist radicalism of Queer Theory.
Naturally, of course, this being the Greens, it’s all shrouded in the utmost secrecy.
The Age spoke to six Greens members, from both ends of the political spectrum, on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to discuss internal party matters.
All members agreed that the party’s new guard would overwhelmingly support either [Apsara Sabaratnam] – who also has a factional power base in the Multicultural Greens – or [Dash Nehring], who sat on the Greens’ internal disciplinary body that recently oversaw a purge of party members over allegations of transphobia.
Marxists do love nothing more than a good, old-fashioned purge.
The old guard of stereotypical Green nosey-nannas – the sort of head-tilting old bats who fill the post-child-rearing void in their lives with a succession of ‘causes’ – are about to be well and truly purged by the Soviet New Woman. Which is just the Soviet New Man in a dress.
Women who have long supported the Greens for their stance on the climate and asylum seekers [are] seeing the party’s transphobia policy as in conflict with their own rights and identity.
How the Greens arrived at a place where, arguably, discussion of sex-based rights is forbidden, is a complex and heavily contested story in which [“Bianca Haven”] can be found at both the start and the end.
Haven is, it should be no surprise, a male ‘transwoman’ who likes to brag about “[winning] the war on women” – and worse.
In February, Haven was censured by the Greens for posting repugnant material, including defending paedophilia and incest. One of her private accounts carries a warning that it contains sexual fantasies involving non-consent. Two months later, she was chosen by branch members to champion the new transphobia provision which, according to Greens leader Samantha Ratnam, “will ensure our party remains a safe and welcoming space for all”.
Because of course ‘she’ was. The very model of a modern Marxist Green.
Meanwhile, the old-school, nosey-nanna Greens would be well advised to hide the ice-picks at future party meetings.
