Fresh start for the Greens, with new leader Larissa Waters
- Written by: Nathan Fioritti, Lecturer in Politics, School of Social Sciences, Monash University
Queensland Senator Larissa Waters[1] is the new leader of the Australian Greens, following a two-hour partyroom meeting held in the wake of the party’s lacklustre[2] performance in the May 3 election.
Waters was elected unopposed.
New South Wales Senator Mehreen Faruqi will continue as Greens deputy, while South Australian Senator Sarah Hanson-Young will be the Greens Manager of Business.
Besides having an apt surname for an ecological party leader, what do we know about Waters?
And as Australia’s 48th parliament prepares to sit, what might we expect from her leadership of the country’s largest minor party?
Who is Larissa Waters?
Waters first entered parliament in 2011, following a career as an environmental lawyer.
She was the first Greens senator to be elected in Queensland and is now the second-longest serving Green in parliament after Hanson-Young.
Born in Canada, Waters’ tenure was briefly interrupted in 2017–2018 when she discovered she had breached section 44[4] of the Constitution by failing to renounce her dual citizenship.
Waters is the second woman after Christine Milne[5] to lead the party. She has leadership experience, serving as Senate leader since 2020 and co-deputy leader prior to that.
Waters’ re-election on May 3 for another six-year term will ensure leadership stability following the unexpected departure of her predecessor, Adam Bandt.
Beyond her clear passion for environmental protection, Waters has dedicated her time in parliament to advancing gender equity, ending gender-based violence, and addressing corporate donations and influence in politics.
She made international news in 2017 when she became the first politician to breastfeed[6] in federal parliament.
New direction?
So what does new leadership mean for the direction of the Greens and the role the party will play in the new parliament?
Will it opt for pragmatism or hold firm on principle?
Will it continue to campaign hard on a diverse set of policy issues, or choose to focus more on its core environmental offering?
Waters is viewed by many in the party as a compromise candidate between Faruqi and Hanson-Young, who according to speculation, were also considering a tilt at the leadership. Faruqi represents the more radical[7] wing of the Greens, while Hanson-Young is a prominent moderate[8] figure who would likely have pushed the party closer to the political centre and faced resistance from elements of the membership.
Given this, Waters is expected to play a unifying role, much like Bandt did during his tenure.
While the Greens held all their seats up for re-election in the Senate, they were close to a wipe-out in the lower house, where they lost three of their four members from the previous parliament.
The party will likely concentrate in future elections on expanding and then retaining their presence in the Senate.
In the lower house, Queensland will be a major focus for the Greens as they try to win back seats they lost at the election – Griffith[10] and Brisbane[11]. Waters’ leadership should help with this aim.
Senate power
Waters will conceivably command more power than Bandt, given the Greens will hold the sole balance of power[12] in the new Senate.
She’s pledged to keep Labor accountable, while urging the government to “be brave” and “actually do what the country needs them to do”.
There’s now no excuse for the Labor Party not to take the climate crisis seriously, to take real action on the housing crisis, to genuinely tackle the cost of living. People deserve more than just tinkering. They deserve real reform that will help them in their daily lives, and nature cannot be put last like it has been for so long.
This, together with the presentation of Waters as a leader who represents continuity, suggests any changes to the party’s approach will likely focus on presentation rather than policy.
Waters is now tasked with reframing the 2025 election result as a moment of short-term pain and setting the party on a path of long-term gain.
Whether or not this will be achieved, and how important Waters’ leadership will be to achieving this, remains to be seen.
How was Waters selected?
The Greens’ leadership selection relies entirely on the federal party room. Unlike the Labor Party, where members have a say on who becomes leader, grassroots Greens are excluded from the process.
Like Waters, all previous leaders – Adam Bandt, Richard Di Natale, Christine Milne and party founder Bob Brown – were elected unopposed, reflecting the party’s consensus style of decision making.
In 2020, there was an unsuccessful push to include the membership base in the leadership process. A “one member, one vote” option received majority support in a party-wide plebiscite[13]. But it failed to meet the two-thirds majority required to force a change.
References
- ^ Larissa Waters (greens.org.au)
- ^ lacklustre (theconversation.com)
- ^ Mick Tsikas/AAP (photos.aap.com.au)
- ^ section 44 (www.abc.net.au)
- ^ Christine Milne (greens.org.au)
- ^ breastfeed (www.bbc.com)
- ^ radical (www.6newsau.com)
- ^ moderate (www.afr.com)
- ^ Mick Tsikas/AAP (photos.aap.com.au)
- ^ Griffith (tallyroom.aec.gov.au)
- ^ Brisbane (tallyroom.aec.gov.au)
- ^ sole balance of power (www.theguardian.com)
- ^ plebiscite (greens.org.au)
Authors: Nathan Fioritti, Lecturer in Politics, School of Social Sciences, Monash University
Read more https://theconversation.com/fresh-start-for-the-greens-with-new-leader-larissa-waters-256453
