Queensland is still home to two of the federal party leaders. While David Littleproud stayed on as National Party leader after the Coalition’s election loss, one-term Liberal leader Peter Dutton found himself without a seat in parliament. Now, the Sunshine State’s newest political standard-bearer hails from the left.
Larissa Waters’ election as Greens leader on Thursday, after Adam Bandt also lost his seat in parliament, restores at least some of Queensland’s political clout in Canberra.
And a career forged in one of Australia’s most conservative states has primed Waters for the progressive fight she will take up from her office in trendy Paddington, in Brisbane’s inner-west.
Newly elected Greens leader Larissa Waters in Melbourne on Thursday.Credit: Penny Stephens
“I’m proud that we have a Queenslander leading the Greens for the first time,” Waters said in Melbourne in her first media conference as leader.
“I commit to you that as a former environmental lawyer, as a proud feminist, that I will always work for equality and I will always work for nature and for the community and to help people. And I think that’s what Parliament needs to do.”
For Queensland, a little balance has been restored to the Force. For the Waters-led Greens, the balance that matters most is the balance of power.
And the new Greens leader was intent on letting Prime Minister Anthony Albanese know a Queensland-based party leader would continue to be a thorn in the side of his second term.
“Now the Labor Party have a choice. They can work with us. They can work with us and help people and protect nature, or they can choose to work with the Coalition,” Waters said.
“They’re going to need to pick because they don’t have the numbers in the Senate to pass the legislation that they want to work on. So we want the Labor Party to be bold, and we want to help them to fix the problems that people are facing.”
Waters’ stated priorities would come as no surprise to anyone who has followed her career.
She entered politics on the back of eight years as a lawyer with the Environmental Defenders Office, which coincidentally lost its state government funding the very day she became Greens leader.
When taking her seat as a Queensland senator as a 34-year-old in 2011, Waters said the limits of environmental protection laws prompted her to get into politics – a decision that would lead her to become the first Greens candidate to ever be elected to office in the state.
(Ronan Lee had earlier sat in state parliament as a Greens member, but that was following his defection from Labor and he lost his seat at the next election.)
Being the first Green elected in Queensland was not the only way in which Waters has been a trailblazer in Australian politics.
In 2017, Waters became the first politician to breastfeed in federal parliament, nursing little Alia Joy as Mum got on with the business of government.
But it was her own infancy that led to her resignation from the Senate just a couple of months later.
Senator Larissa Waters with her baby Alia, putting forward a motion on lung disease in 2017.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
Waters was born in Winnipeg, Canada, in 1977, and had come to Australia as an 11-month-old. She had never returned to Canada.
Unbeknown to her, Waters had maintained Canadian and Australian dual citizenship and was caught up in the section 44 Australian parliamentary eligibility crisis, becoming one of eight senators and seven lower house MPs forced to resign.
“Canadian law changed a week after I was born and required me to have actively renounced Canadian citizenship,” she said at the time.
“I had not renounced since I was unaware that I was a dual citizen.”
Former Democrats leader Andrew Bartlett acted as seatwarmer until the next election, when Waters – having formally renounced her Canadian citizenship – was re-elected to the Senate.
As the first Greens representative elected in Queensland, Waters opened the door for other candidates.
Jonathan Sri (who later went by his full Tamil name, Sriranganathan) was first to follow, claiming The Gabba ward in Brisbane City Council. Trina Massey replaced Sriranganathan in 2023 and she was joined by fellow Greens councillor Seal Chong Wah in the Paddington ward at last year’s council election.
At a state level, Michael Berkman was the first Green to be elected to the Queensland state parliament in 2017, being joined by Amy McMahon the following term.
But the high-water mark for the Queensland Greens was, without doubt, the 2022 federal election.
Not only did Waters gain a new Senate-mate in Penny Allman-Payne, but Brisbane elected three lower-house Greens MPs – Elizabeth Watson-Brown (Ryan), Stephen Bates (Brisbane) and Max Chandler-Mather (Griffith).
Since then, however, the Greens have struggled to maintain the momentum. While the party’s vote has remained relatively strong overall, McMahon, Bates and Chandler-Mather have all lost their seats in their most recent elections.
The party would be hoping some Queensland leadership might improve its fortunes at future polls.
Start the day with a summary of the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.