Former Greens leader Bob Brown has thrown his full support behind newly elected party leader Larissa Waters.
Brown, who founded the party and led it from its inception until 2012, welcomed Waters’ appointment following Adam Bandt’s loss in the seat of Melbourne.
He praised her strong environmental track record as the Greens look to maintain influence in the Senate.
“The world is facing an existential crisis in which extinction is happening before our eyes, and collapse characterises ecosystems from the Great Barrier Reef and Ningaloo to our native forests,” Brown said.
“With the Albanese Government saying it intends to address our weak and outdated nature laws, it is critical that there is a strong Greens voice injecting the dire state of the natural world into the debates. Larissa will do that splendidly.”
Queensland Senator Waters was elected unopposed on Thursday after the party’s disappointing performance in the May 3 federal election.
The Greens lost three lower house seats but held onto a key balance-of-power role in the Senate, a position Tasmanian Senator Nick McKim said the party intends to use.
“We have been given a mandate to use our position in the Senate to hold Labor to account and make it act on issues like climate, environment, housing and social and economic justice. We will be doing exactly that,” McKim said.
Christine Milne, who succeeded Brown as leader and was the first woman to lead the party, described Waters as “a dedicated Environmental lawyer, feminist, mother and an all round warm, caring person of integrity”.
“She is a team player and is exactly the right person to lead The Greens as we drive serious climate and nature policy,” she said.
“The parliament is dominated by fossil fuel corporate interests and who better to take them on than Larissa.”
Waters, a long-time advocate and former environmental lawyer, said she is committed to continuing the Greens’ legacy of standing up for the planet.
“The issues that people are facing are getting harder and are getting worse,” she said on Thursday.
“We need strong action on the climate, on nature, on the housing crisis, on the cost of living crisis and we need our parliament to work to actually meet the needs of the people that it’s been elected to represent.”
