The Victorian Greens want to stage an official takeover of its largest branch, Darebin, amid the continued fall-out from the party's disastrous showing in this year's Batman byelection.
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But the party's head office insists no action will be taken without the input of the Darebin branch members.
Anger is growing within the inner-north branch that the process that was supposed to find and punish internal saboteurs is now being used to justify a “takeover” of Darebin, insiders have told The Age.
The party’s state council decided at the weekend that it wanted the Darebin branch to be run by “administrators” for up to two years in an effort to “move towards resolving the internal conflicts within its membership”.
Greens state co-convenor Rose Read said she and her colleagues would seek input from Darebin members before any final decisions were made, but that the review of the Batman debacle had found "significant weaknesses in our disputes resolution process" and that reform was urgently needed.
The council met on Saturday to discuss a review of the campaign, which was derailed by internal sabotage, ordered by leader Richard Di Natale, who had vowed to find and expel those who had leaked against and undermined candidate Alex Bhathal.
The state council will meet again on June 30 for further discussions.
The Greens’ state office, which made no official comment after Saturday's meeting, has been contacted for comment on Monday.
Numbers on the council are controlled by a faction close to both Victorian leader Samantha Ratnam and Senator Di Natale and some Darebin branch members are furious, branding the administrators idea a “takeover” of Darebin by the dominant Moreland faction.
It is unclear if the party can appoint administrators without the consent of the branch, which is set to call an urgent meeting to discuss the idea with its hundreds of members.
But one senior Darebin member told The Age that the party’s hierarchy would never secure the agreement of the 380-strong branch to the idea of appointing administrators, saying members would not consent to being punished for the actions of a few.
“This is like being at school and a few kids muck up but the whole class gets into trouble” the source said.
A Darebin branch official went further, saying both the review team and the state council had been “gaslighted”.
“Less than 5 per cent of our membership breached multiple party rules over a two-year period in order to stop our party winning a second House of Reps seats, and not only have they not been sanctioned for telling lies and undermining our branch, our office bearers and our candidate, the party is considering over-ruling internal branch democracy and appointing 'administrators',” the senior member wrote in an online post.
“The Victorian Greens are no longer the party I joined ... but are now riddled with ego-driven careerism and rampant corruption.”
There is also unhappiness among supporters of Ms Bhathal that the candidate has still not been shown the allegations against her, which were leaked to the media early in the campaign and hampered her efforts to win the seat from Labor.
Ms Read published a statement on Monday, acknowledging internal strife had been behind the loss in Batman.
“The report also recommended independent management of the Darebin branch with a focus on conflict resolution and good governance," she said.
“State council, including those Darebin branch members who sit on the council, acknowledged the need for action at the branch level and resolved to work with the branch members to achieve this outcome.
"Despite any reporting to the contrary, no action relating to branch management will be taken without the input of the members of the branch."
