Greens Leadership Showdown: Faruqi and McKim Challenge Sarah Hanson-Young
Greens senators Mehreen Faruqi and Nick McKim are preparing a joint leadership ticket to face veteran South Australian senator Sarah Hanson-Young following the sudden resignation of former leader Larissa Waters. The parliamentary party is set to decide the vacancy during a two-day retreat in Sydney, where 10 senators and one MP will vote on Wednesday or Thursday.
Leadership Showdown and Strategic Divisions
Waters announced her resignation on Sunday due to illness, ending a tenure in which she led the party through a consultative approach that helped Labor pass key legislation, including its budget tax package. Her departure has triggered an internal contest over the future direction of the party. Hanson-Young put her name forward on Tuesday as the first contender for the top job, while Faruqi and Tasmanian senator McKim announced a joint bid shortly after. NSW senator David Shoebridge has not yet ruled out a run.
Faruqi and McKim positioned their ticket around a combative stance against current political conditions. “To meet the moment the Greens need to grow. We need to take the fight to Labor and a broken economic system that rips off young people,” the pair said in a joint statement, adding that they are equipped to “resist the rise of the far right.” Sources close to the leadership deliberations anticipate that contenders may seek a consensus position before the Sydney meeting to avoid a contested ballot.
Grassroots Demands and Party Rebuilding
The internal contest follows a period of reflection for the Greens after the 2025 federal election, which saw former leader Adam Bandt and prominent Queensland MP Max Chandler-Mather lose their seats in the House of Representatives. Despite drops in support for both major parties in subsequent opinion polls, the Greens have struggled to capitalize on voter disaffection as other minor parties gain ground.
Weighing in on the vacancy, Chandler-Mather—now executive director of the Greens Institute—wrote to his former parliamentary colleagues on Tuesday calling for an open, all-member ballot to select the new leader. Pointing to the success of direct member elections in the UK and New Zealand Greens, he argued that the party’s leadership direction is currently decided by just 11 elected representatives despite winning nearly 2 million votes at the last election. “The selection of a new leader comes at a time of genuine debate and disagreement about the future strategic and political direction of the party. That debate couldn’t have higher stakes,” Chandler-Mather wrote.