Expelled Australian Greens co-founder Drew Hutton will have his life membership reinstated under a deal proposed by the party’s Queensland division recognising that he was wrongly marched for questioning its pro-transgender platform.

In a humiliation for the Queensland Greens, their own lawyers found the 78-year-old had been denied natural justice on four occasions during the internal disciplinary proceedings that led to his expulsion – a process backed by federal leader Larissa Waters, Mr Hutton’s one-time friend and a Brisbane-based ­senator.

Ironically, the Greens’ capitulation on Mr Hutton will need to be endorsed by their state council, the body that ratified the decision to boot him in July over complaints that he had breached its code of ethics.

But a settlement is still some way off, wit