Victorian Greens leader,Samantha Ratnam,tweeted on Friday night that she had instigated the action to have the election result set aside.
“I can now reveal that my action was successful and Linda Gale is no longer the Convenor of the Victorian Greens. There will now be a new election for convenor and I urge Linda to not re-contest the election,” Ratnam tweeted.
The decision was made by an administrative review panel the night before the state council meeting on Saturday.
Gale toldThe Age on Saturday that she was feeling “shell shocked”,as well as “a sense of betrayal” by some people who had previously expressed respect for her work in many Greens roles over 11 years. She is weighing up her options to contest a re-run election.
“I really have a sense of disappointment,as a party member,that our democratic processes have been treated as though they’re nothing and that it’s perfectly legitimate to use a social media pile-on to attack the outcome of an election,” she said.
She strongly denied that she was a “transphobe” and said “despite the experience of the last week,I do think the party is better than this”.