Tasmania’s longstanding Greens leader Cassy O’Connor resigns in upper house gamble, as Vica Bayley joins Greens’ team

A shake-up in the Tasmanian Greens aims to give the party its first upper house seat while renewing its lower house team ahead of a looming state election.

Greens leader Cassy O'Connor has announced her resignation. Picture: News Corp Australia

A shake-up in the Tasmanian Greens aims to give the party its first upper house seat while renewing its lower house team ahead of a looming state election.

Conservationist Vica Bayley will enter the House of Assembly on a recount, replacing Tasmania’s longstanding Greens leader, Cassy O’Connor, who on Thursday announced her resignation.

While quitting the lower house after 15 years – including the past eight years as leader, Ms O’Connor, 56, said she would seek election to the upper house (Legislative Council) seat of Hobart in 2024.

“We need renewal,” Ms O’Connor said. “We also need more Greens elected, so I’m not done yet. We need a Green upstairs.

“I know I am taking a risk… but we have an opportunity to have a Green elected to the Legislative Council.”

The party’s other lower house MP, Rosalie Woodruff, will take the leadership, to which Ms O’Connor said she would not seek to return if she won Hobart.

“Decent leaders just know when it’s the right time to go,” she said. “I need a break. I need to clear some space on my hard drive and regenerate.”

She cited her “proudest moment” as voting to protect 356,000ha of native forests under the 2013 Tasmanian Forests Agreement.

Ms O’Connor, who cut her political teeth as an adviser to then-federal Labor MP Duncan Kerr and later to Greens leader Christine Milne, served as a cabinet minister in the state Labor-Green power sharing state government from 2010-14.

Mr Bayley, as the next highest vote winner of the Greens ticket in the Hobart-based seat of Clark at the May 2021 state election, will replace Ms O’Connor on a recount under the Hare Clark voting system.

A former Wilderness Society campaigner and solar energy consultant, the 52-year-old is currently an adviser to the Aboriginal Land Council of Tasmania.

“I intend to nominate (for the recount) and acknowledge and thank Cassy for her incredible representation over many, many years,” Mr Bayley told The Australian.

“I hope that I can do half as good a job and wish Cassy well with her future aspirations.”

By resigning now, Ms O’Connor gives Mr Bayley time to establish himself as an MP before a state election due by May 2025 but which could occur any moment, with the Liberal government in minority and battling internal dissent.

However, her departure will leave a massive hole in the Greens’ Clark ticket, given that in 2021 she received almost an entire quota in her own right. (The Assembly has multi-member electorates, elected on a quota system).

Dr Woodruff, an epidemiologist elected to the Assembly in 2015, hailed her predecessor for her drive and commitment. “I’m very excited and sad at the same time – it’s a new chapter in the Tasmanian Greens,” she said.

Former state and federal Greens leader Bob Brown praised Ms O’Connor as “a strong and wise defender of Tasmania’s future, in particular its wild and scenic beauty, wildlife, Aboriginal heritage and visitor hospitality”.