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Greens attack dog Adam Bandt takes party leadership

Adam Bandt, who has accused Scott Morrison of being a ‘climate killer’, is the new leader of the Australian Greens.

Greens senators Nick McKim, left, Larissa Waters, new Greens leader Adam Bandt and Senator Rachel Siewert in Canberra on Tuesday. Picture: AAP
Greens senators Nick McKim, left, Larissa Waters, new Greens leader Adam Bandt and Senator Rachel Siewert in Canberra on Tuesday. Picture: AAP

Adam Bandt, who has accused Scott Morrison of being a “climate killer” and claims big business is “killing people and endangering people’s safety” is the new leader of the Australian Greens after Richard Di Natale quit the post on Monday.

Mr Bandt, who was first elected to parliament in 2010, holds the inner-metropolitan seat of Melbourne and is the Greens’ only lower house member.

Since first running for Melbourne in 2007, Mr Bandt has more than doubled his support, winning 49.3 per cent of the primary vote in 2019 and securing the third-highest two-candidate-preferred result in the country with 68.5 per cent.

The former barrister has consistently attacked his political opponents on issues such as climate policy, border protection and foreign policy, having used his maiden speech to warn of an im­pend­ing climate emergency. In 2017, Mr Bandt courted controversy for linking March’s Cyclone Debbie to a new coal-fired power plant being canvassed for north Queensland, saying the “blood of future generations” would be on Malcolm Turnbull’s hands if he proceeded with the project.

In February 2018, Mr Bandt was forced to apologise when he labelled Liberal senator Jim Molan a “coward” and suggested he would be prosecuted as a war criminal if there were an independent inquiry into his conduct in Iraq.

That same year, Mr Bandt removed a Facebook post that included Nazi-sympathiser imagery of a Jewish banker and apologised “for any offence caused”, amid outrage from the Jewish community and condemnation from Race Discrimination Commissioner Tim Soutphommasane.

Mr Bandt joins the ranks of other party leaders who like to DJ and boasts a pair of turntables at home. He is joined in his new leadership team by Larissa Waters and Nick McKim. Senator Waters was elected to the role of co-deputy and Senate leader while Senator McKim received the other co-deputy position.

Senator Waters told the ABC on Tuesday she didn’t run for the leadership position as she is a ­single mother of two young children and decided to increase her responsibilities in the Senate.

She is the first Queensland Greens member to be elected to the federal Senate and made history in 2017 when she became the first woman to breastfeed in Australian parliament.

A lawyer by training, Senator Waters was forced to resign in 2017 after discovering she held dual citizenship with Canada.

Senator Waters has consistently called out sexism in politics and lashed Mathias Cormann in 2014 when he accused then Labor leader Bill Shorten of being an “economic girly man”.

Last year, she donned a pair of “Stop Adani” earrings in the Senate chamber, which drew the ire of LNP senator Ian MacDonald.

Senator McKim is a former Tasmanian Greens leader who was first elected to the state parliament in 2002 where he represented the electorate of Franklin.

In 2016, Senator McKim took aim at then immigration minister Peter Dutton after he claimed the majority of those charged with terrorist-related offences came from a Lebanese-Muslim background.

The comment ignited a fiery war of words in parliament after Mr Shorten seized on the issue to attack the Turnbull government for fuelling racial hatred.

“Just because something is fact doesn’t mean that it’s reasonable or productive to talk about it,” Senator McKim told Sky News.

Original URL: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/greens-attack-dog-adam-bandt-takes-party-leadership/news-story/c54e3d5c8d41b89043ed4f80ffd81f11