Latest news with #SarahHansonYoung
The Guardian
3 days ago
- Health
- The Guardian
Australia news live: Sarah Hanson-Young says North West Shelf decision ‘beggars belief'; states rated on vape action
Update: Date: 2025-05-29T20:30:34.000Z Title: Welcome Content: Good morning and welcome to our live news blog. I'm Martin Farrer with the best stories of the morning and then it will be Nick Visser to take you towards the weekend. South Australia and Queensland are leading the nation when it comes to tackling tobacco and vapes, while the Northern Territory and Western Australia are falling behind, according to a scorecard assessing the different jurisdictions. More coming up. After this week's decision to extend the life of Woodside's North West Shelf LNG facility in the Burrup Peninsula in Western Australia, local activists will be out in force in Perth today. The campaign group Disrupt Burrup Hub will today gather outside the Western Australian district court against the decision and as three of their number are sentenced for a protest against Woodside. Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young has decried the decision by the environment minister, Murray Watt, saying it 'beggars belief' in the age of climate change. More coming up.
ABC News
3 days ago
- Business
- ABC News
The contentious decision to extend the North West Shelf gas project
The Albanese government's decision to approve an extension of the North West Shelf gas project in WA has been highly contentious, but it's also raised the question of why we are selling most of our gas overseas, while we are being warned of shortages here at home. Here's political editor Laura Tingle with her take. Plus, Sarah Ferguson interviews Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young.
The Guardian
15-05-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Larissa Waters vows politics with ‘heart' – but don't expect compromise on core Greens principles
Larissa Waters is known to wear her views on her ears. From the 'Stop Adani' coalmine campaign to the ongoing fight for reproductive rights, the Queensland senator has often used themed earrings to make a point. In a party known for raucous protest, for shouting, even brandishing a fish on the floor of parliament, Waters' subtle-yet-pointed displays of defiance offer a window into the style of politician the Greens have chosen as their new leader. The 48-year-old is the fifth person to lead the party after Bob Brown, Christine Milne, Richard Di Natale and Adam Bandt – whose shock defeat in his own seat at the 3 May election brought on an unexpected leadership ballot. The social activist Mehreen Faruqi and the deal-making environmentalist Sarah Hanson-Young were spoken of as contenders ahead of Thursday's party room vote in Melbourne. In the end, the far lower-profile but far less polarising Waters was elected unopposed and unanimously by the Greens' 12 federal parliamentarians. Waters has been in parliament for 15 years and held the positions of co-deputy leader and leader in the upper house. But party insiders say the single mother-of-two has never pursued power and only reluctantly agreed to run for the leadership at the urging of others. Sign up for Guardian Australia's breaking news email She is smart, warm and friendly, colleagues say, the type of politician who can bring people together. Her Labor counterparts describe her as pragmatic. As the Greens rebuild from a federal election result few saw coming, some of those qualities will be needed – and tested – more than ever. So where will Waters take the Greens? The first signs of a new approach were written in bold in a party-issued press release announcing the new leader. 'Progressive Parliament with politics of heart – incoming Greens leader Larissa Waters outlines 'firm but constructive' approach for her leadership,' the statement led off. The reference to 'constructive' will be interpreted as signalling a softening in the hardline tactics that Bandt – and fellow vanquished Greens MP Max Chandler-Mather – adopted in negotiations with Labor, in particular on housing. Waters was an environmental lawyer before entering politics and has more recently been the Greens' chief advocate for women, meaning both areas may naturally be elevated under her leadership. But to expect Waters' Greens to radically depart from Bandt's Greens would be to misunderstand how the party views the election result. The public postmortem into the party's campaign has been conducted largely by its critics – including Labor and rightwing lobby group Advance – which have cast the Greens' loss of three lower seats as a rejection of their 'extreme' positions, particularly on Gaza. The Greens, in public and private, simply do not accept this narrative. Sign up to Breaking News Australia Get the most important news as it breaks after newsletter promotion Insiders point to the party's national vote – which, at 12.01%, is down less than 0.2% – as proof its support is holding up. The loss of two seats in Brisbane was not down to Chandler-Mather or his ill-advised attendance at a CFMEU rally, they say, but rather a sudden and severe collapse in the Liberal vote. In Bandt's case, the former leader was the victim of an unkind redrawing of the boundaries of his seat of Melbourne. There is some truth to these assessments. There might also be some delusion. In any case, what lessons the Greens took – or didn't take – from the campaign will inform how they approach the next term. The Albanese government's thumping election win will embolden it to demand the Greens wave through its agenda or again be painted as 'blockers'. How Waters and the Greens manage the now clear expectation of progressive voters who want Labor to be pushed – but not obstructed – will define the early stages of her leadership. The Greens are in arguably a more powerful position in parliament now that it holds the sole balance of power in the upper house when Labor wants to bypass the Coalition. The first test will be on the environment. Labor is eager to resurrect – albeit in a new form – plans for a federal environment protection agency, which stalled in the previous term after Anthony Albanese scuttled a near-deal with the Greens. The Greens will be urged to accept whatever model Labor puts forward, however weak. There will be similar pressure when Labor ultimately lands on a 2035 emissions reduction target. Waters might have vowed to do politics with a 'heart' but don't expect to her to compromise on core principles. Dan Jervis-Bardy is a political reporter for Guardian Australia based in Canberra
ABC News
15-05-2025
- Politics
- ABC News
Larissa Waters secures top Greens job while Tim Wilson waits anxiously
Welcome back to your weekly federal politics update, where Brett Worthington gets you up to speed on the happenings from Parliament House. Anyone keeping half an ear on the scenes in Rome in recent weeks will be well versed in the old papal election saying. "He who enters the conclave as pope, leaves it as a cardinal." The secrecy of a papal conclave has nothing on the dark arts of the Greens. Things in the Greens are so secretive that it was months after the fact that Bob Brown confirmed Sarah Hanson-Young had mounted a botched leadership challenge to then deputy Christine Milne. Live results: Find out what's happening in your seat as counting continues Like those cardinals getting locked up in the Sistine Chapel, when the green smoke billowed from a Melbourne meeting room on Thursday afternoon, the leader to emerge wasn't the name that had necessarily been on the lips of pundits when they went in. And it certainly wasn't a he. Queenslander Larissa Waters emerged as the second woman to lead the federal Greens, beating out South Australian Sarah Hanson-Young and Mehreen Faruqi (whose names had been touted as the most likely in the days ahead of the meeting). The Greens are coming to terms with Labor's landslide victory, which saw the shock loss of leader Adam Bandt and two of the party's three lower house seats in Brisbane. The loss of Bandt, Max Chandler-Mather and Stephen Bates leaves the Greens party room as two-thirds women so there were few surprises that the party emerged with an all female leadership team. More shocking was the transparency with which the acting leader, Tasmanian Nick McKim, brought to announcing the results. The Greens like to do things by consensus and it seems unity wasn't completely on show behind closed doors. Waters emerged as the consensus pick for leader, as was Hanson-Young's consolation prize as manager of Senate business. Faruqi, McKim tells us, fended off a challenge from West Australian Dorinda Cox for the deputy leadership (nine votes to three), with Cox then also falling short in her bid to be deputy chair, losing to Penny Allman-Payne eight votes to four. "Now the Labor Party have a choice," Waters said when she spoke with reporters. "They can work with us. They can work with us and help people and protect nature, or they can choose to work with the Coalition." Angus Taylor didn't even have to wait for the vote to be rejected by the Liberal party room. Attempting to enter the room on Tuesday morning, he was met with a telling omen — a locked door. Turns out he'd gone to the wrong entry. Well done, Angus. Once in the room, the outcome was much the same, falling short in a leadership ballot that delivered a historic moment for the federal Liberal Party — a female leader. Sussan Ley's rise to the worst job in politics came with plenty of column centimetres about whether or not it was another case of the "glass cliff", where a party opts for a female leader when the prospect of success has all but disappeared. She insists it isn't a "glass cliff" appointment, while others disagree, like former Liberal Julia Banks, who spectacularly quit the federal party in 2018 and later alleged she was subject to an unwanted sexual advance from a cabinet minister. Whether it's a shattering of a glass ceiling, or a woman thrust before a glass cliff, only history can tell. But in the interim, Ley is now tasked with bringing together not just her Liberals but the broader Coalition with the junior party vying for greater representation in her shadow cabinet. Ley insists that cabinet will feature both those who supported her and those who didn't (and when you're leading an opposition as small as hers it's not like one can be be that choosy). One of the biggest question marks hanging over Ley's frontbench is the future of the federal parliament's newest Liberal — Jacinta Nampijinpa Price. Price's former colleagues in the Nats insist her defection is just about the NT senator's pursuit of the prime ministership, a sentiment she certainly wasn't hosing down in an interview with Sky News mere hours after Ley's appointment. "I know there are a lot of Australians who'd love to see that," Price said of the prospect of her becoming prime minister. Helpful. Price's defection to the Liberals, a party she insists she wanted to join when she was first elected in 2022, was part of a two-step bid to become Taylor's deputy. His defeat in partyroom prompted her to abort her plans to run for the second top job. Some argue her defection to the Libs, which was meant to help Taylor, instead helped sink his chances. Had Price stayed with the Nationals, she would have a guaranteed spot in the shadow cabinet. In the Liberals, it's far less certain, with South Australian senator Kerrynne Liddle a candidate to replace Price with the Indigenous Australians portfolio. Peter Dutton's opposition leader office had barely been cleared before the shredding off his connection to the new look Liberal Party started taking shape. Within 20 minutes of her victory, a WhatsApp group used to communicate logistics and press availabilities between the Liberal leader and the parliamentary press gallery had a new name and new ownership, noticeably with the swift removal of Dutton's close media advisers. If Andrew Hastie gets his way, his team too might one day get a chance to rename that WhatsApp group. Like Price's helpful intervention, the WA MP and shadow defence minister under Dutton told a Labor-aligned podcast that he had a "desire to lead" the Liberals... one day. "I'd be foolish to say I don't have a desire to lead, I do have a desire to lead," he said. "But the timing was all out for personal reasons." Want even more? Here's where you can find all our 2025 federal election coverage Catch the latest interviews and in-depth coverage on ABC iview and ABC Listen It's amazing the difference a week can make in politics. Last Thursday, Tim Wilson was still on a dizzying high after claiming victory in the Melbourne bayside electorate of Goldstein, happily reminding whoever would listen the historic nature of his return to Canberra. Wilson was on such a high that he even flirted with a tilt at the leadership, publicly cheered on by fellow Liberal-turned-loser-to-a-teal Jason Fallinski. Fast-forward to today, and it's a noticeably quieter Wilson (who at the weekend ruled himself out of a leadership run). He now finds himself in a nerve-wracking wait, with independent MP Zoe Daniel making a late comeback in her bid to hold the seat. His more than 1,000 vote lead last Friday fell to 401 votes on Wednesday and was just 302 votes at the time of publication on Thursday. With no more than 1,250 votes left to count, ABC election guru Antony Green reckons Wilson remains likely but certainly not as convincing as a week earlier. Speaking of tight counts, the battle for Bradfield has Liberal Gisele Kapterian just 70 votes ahead of independent Nicolette Boele. The only other seat in doubt is Calwell, in Melbourne's north-west, which will be weeks away from an outcome thanks to a complicated count the likes of which are rarely seen. For those keeping count, that's now two women leading federal parliamentary parties... just not at Labor, where despite having a majority female partyroom, the old boys are still very much in charge. Albanese this week unveiled his new-look ministry after a bruising few days in which the ousted Ed Husic dubbed Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles a "factional assassin". After the factional carve-ups rained on the party's parade, the new-look team headed for Government House, where the king's representative was tasked with not just swearing in the ministry, but overseeing a game of indoor football, or "Queensland footy" as the ex AFL commissioner turned Governor General Sam Mostyn put it. Mostyn showed how truly modern her appointment has been to a role more renowned with stuffy former military or lawyer types. She dispensed with formalities and protocol and responded like a human (rare scenes in political circles) to talk directly with cabinet minister Anika Wells' four-year old twins, who'd arrived with a Maroons ball in tow. Factional fighting aside, Albanese can lay claim to leading a government like any other in Australia's history. There are more women and more people from diverse backgrounds than ever before. Those credentials go some way to explaining the pain that's been on display in the dumping of Husic, Australia's first Muslim cabinet minister, and Albanese's decision to offer women just a third of the assistant ministry roles he had the power to determine himself. Dealing with that, however, is a future problem, with Albanese flying out for a week-long visit to Indonesia, Singapore and the Vatican, which seems pertinent as conclaves here and abroad conclude.
Daily Mail
15-05-2025
- Politics
- Daily Mail
Peter van Onselen: Australia can breathe easy after Greens go for the blandest option in Larissa 'Still' Waters
The country has dodged a bullet, thanks to the Greens. While that's not a sentence you'll hear very often, this week it's true. The party room of 12 wise disciples representing the minor party in federal parliament has shunned the firebrand deputy leader Mehreen Faruqi. Instead, they favoured Queensland Senator Larissa Waters as its new leader, to replace Adam Bandt who lost his seat of Melbourne at the election. While the Greens would have been wiser to pick Sarah Hanson Young for the role, Waters is a comfortable lesser of evils compared with Faruqi who as deputy leader was in the box seat to take over from Bandt. She's a radical who would have dragged the activist minor party even further to the left, taking it further away from its environmental roots to advocate for issues appealing to only a very narrow band of the Australian population. Prior to Thursday's partyroom decision on its new leader, I flagged the litany of the extreme policy positions Faruqi has spruiked over the years. She's backed everything from refusing to agree terrorist group Hamas should be disbanded, to claiming in 2024 that the Labor government was 'complicit in Israel's genocide', to wanting the Lord's Prayer removed from parliamentary proceedings. When the Queen passed away she even pointedly noted: 'I cannot mourn the leader of a racist empire built on stolen lives, land and wealth of colonised peoples'. Now that the Greens hold the balance of power in the senate all in their own right, a period of Faruqi leading the minor party would have made it near impossible for Labor to govern from the centre. Waters is unlikely to follow a similar path. She's shown a willingness during her career to negotiate with colleagues from the major parties. Just as importantly she's been prepared to enter those negotiations with an air of civility. The fact that the Greens partyroom struggled to build consensus around its choice of a new leader speaks to how divisive Faruqi can be. Even her own partyroom was divided about her penchant for extremism and what it might do to the Greens' brand after an election result which saw its primary vote slip and a host of lower house seats be lost. And that was under Bandt's leadership - a less radical version of Faruqi. The challenge for Waters will now be to keep her partyroom together and avoid Faruqi and her supporters going rouge. The minor party encourages free votes from time to time and its entirely possible defections follow Thursday's announcement.
