Greens candidate Alex Bhathal (right) and Greens senator Richard Di Natale before the Batman byelection. Credit:AAP

I was active in the Greens for a number of years in a range of roles, and was the first Victorian Greens councillor elected in an outer suburban local government area. I was a candidate in a number of elections including Narre Warren South in the state election of 2014. I became more and more despondent during the last few years and decided to finally leave the party in early 2015. As someone from an Indian migrant background having just witnessed the take-down of Alex Bhathal, I want to warn others who might be looking to the Greens as their hope for Australian politics. Stay away, far away.

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The internal sabotage that doomed the Greens campaign for Batman and the party’s treatment of Bhathal, a powerful woman and Greens figure who inspires many, is the public evidence of what many passionate and committed Greens members already know, that our party is overridden by a abusive and bullying internal organisational culture. And that racism is rampant in the party and embedded in its processes and structures.

I’m writing this because I see so many well-intentioned and well-meaning supporters and donors get completely taken in by a powerful elite in the party, who refer continually to the party’s pillars and principles but bully and abuse and stop at nothing to get their way. I see other more aware members who know they should speak up but feel helpless, terrified into silence, constrained by their decent adherence to the rules set down by the elite, and muted by a cult-like fear of what will happen to their memberships, their careers or aims in the party if they speak out. The example of what happened in Batman to Bhathal says it all.