Queensland Greens candidate looking good for a balancing act

MEET Larissa Waters, the fresh face of the Greens in Queensland, the state that has been slowest to warm to them.

MEET Larissa Waters, the fresh face of the Greens in Queensland, the state that has been slowest to warm to them.

She wants to extend no-fishing zones, ban new coalmines, give priority to farm land over the development of potentially rich coal-seam gas and underground coal gasification fields, and tell sandminers they will be happier planting trees or working in eco-tourism.

She is in furious agreement with her leader, Bob Brown, that the pay of chief executives should be capped and that carbon be priced through an interim tax.

And she is better placed to do what no other Green has done and get elected as senator for Queensland.

If the polls are borne out on August 21, Ms Waters, 33, is Canberra-bound and will help deliver to the Greens the balance of power in the next Senate.

Not that she plans to use it to wheel and deal with the government -- be it led by Julia Gillard or Tony Abbott.

That is not the Greens way, Ms Waters says.

"We don't horse-trade. We look at every proposal on its merits. We see how we can improve it, and if we can't support it, we propose an alternative," she told The Weekend Australian.

It has been a big week for the Brisbane environmental lawyer and mother.

After appearing at the Greens campaign launch last Sunday, her profile got another boost on ABC TV's Q&A program, when it was broadcast from the Queensland capital for the first time.

Ms Waters got an easier time on the panel than South Australian Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young did in June, after the Labor leadership change.

Legendary ALP numbers man and former federal environment minister Graham Richardson went to town on Senator Hanson-Young after she trumpeted the Greens' decision last year to side with the Coalition and block the then-Rudd government's emissions trading scheme, dooming the legislation and arguably Kevin Rudd's prime ministership.

Mr Richardson said the Greens' "absolutism" was the reason they hadn't made bigger inroads into parliament. "They don't achieve . . . if all you continue to achieve is nothing, then all I can say is God help the lot of us, and that's what happening now," he said.

Ms Waters' election in Queensland is key to the Greens' hopes to increase their current tally of five in the Senate, when they are certain to have the balance of power in their own right.

She hit back at Mr Richardson, saying his critique of the Greens was "just a Labor Party line that doesn't mount up to facts".

Asked what she hoped to achieve if the Greens stayed on the path outlined by Mr Richardson and shunned compromise, Ms Waters said: "Well, the Greens aren't in charge of the government. The . . . Greens in the balance of power will only ever have a say when the two big parties haven't ganged up together . . . it's only when the major parties don't agree, and frankly they agree on an awful lot of things, that our numbers come into play."

She said she would "always put Queensland's interests first" if elected, but was unable to say when a Greens senator had crossed the floor on an issue that clashed with the party's position.