One-time NSW Greens MP Jeremy Buckingham has taken a swipe at his most-likely replacement on the upper house ticket, corporate lawyer Abigail Boyd, in his most substantial intervention in the affairs of his former party since quitting.
Mr Buckingham said it was "astonishing and disappointing" that Ms Boyd was a leading Greens candidate in the March election, suggesting her past work at corporate law firm Allen & Overy — which frequently works for major energy firms — was at odds with the party's platform.
Fed up: Jeremy Buckingham quit the Greens last December.
But Ms Boyd hit back, and said environmental issues "are not niche issues", and the party would benefit from a candidate with her extensive experience in finance and economics.
Despite early voting for the state election beginning in three weeks, the NSW Greens still face a stoush over their upper house ticket, with a long-simmering conflict between Ms Boyd and Mr Buckingham's party ally Dawn Walker, now in Parliament, unresolved.
Mr Buckingham's departure from the party, after Greens MP Jenny Leong used parliamentary privilege to call on him to resign over allegations of sexual harassment of a staffer, would mean votes cast for him during the pre-selection would have likely flowed to Ms Walker.
Ms Walker is third on the ticket — likely an unwinnable position — while Ms Boyd is second after the party's lead candidate David Shoebridge.
Mr Buckingham said Ms Boyd had "spent the last decade working for a company that specialises in growing the fossil fuel industry and the wealth of the super rich".
“The Greens have lost their focus on the climate and environment," he said.
"They’ve been hijacked by phonies who see it as a path to power if they just mouth the correct ideology, regardless of how hypocritical it may be.
"It’s pathetic and sad to see the Greens running a candidate whose company was working for Adani, Santos, Origin and Gina Rinehart.”
In the recent past Allen & Overy has advised Adani over a $1.25 billion refinancing of its Abbot Point Coal Terminal debt, assisted in a loan facility for Woodside Petroleum, and helped Macquarie with a bond issuance which partly funded the expansion of the Newcastle Coal terminal.
However, Ms Boyd did not work on those deals, and her law practice specialised in offshore debt financing work, including a £3.5 billion ($6.3 billion) capital raising for Sheikh Mansour Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, a member of the Abu Dhabi royal family.
"Because of my background, I am well-equipped to deal with environmental issues and climate change, and we need more people as MPs with that kind of experience," Ms Boyd said.
"These are not niche issues, these are issues which are a whole-of-society problem that require whole-of-society solutions, and I would say no sensible person can have discussions on climate and the environment without relating it back to economics and finance.
"That's why my experience will be incredible valuable for the Greens."
Mr Buckingham left the party despite an internal Greens investigation finding that the NSW Greens "resolve this matter with no adverse finding against you with respect to sexual harassment or inappropriate behaviour toward [the complainant]."
Since his departure, he has used the worsening situation in the Murray Darling Basin as a platform for his run as an independent, and intends to run with other anti-mining candidates in March.
Ms Leong told the Herald on Saturday that claims of an internal division in the party was exaggerated, and said Mr Buckingham's position in the Greens was "untenable".