Bandt urges incoming Greens leader to challenge Labor on new coal and gas projects

Former Australian Greens leader Adam Bandt has urged the party’s incoming leadership to stop Labor approving new coal and gas projects, saying grassroots members will expect action on fossil fuels. Fellow former leader Bob Brown says the successor to Larissa Waters must also be able to secure major reforms from Labor and confront Pauline Hanson’s One Nation. Their comments, reported by the Guardian on 29 September, set out competing pressures as the Greens choose a new leader; they do not amount to a party decision.

Waters announced on 28 September that she was stepping down because a pre-existing kidney disease had worsened in recent months. The Greens said the demands of leadership, including travel, were incompatible with giving her health the attention it needs. The party said its parliamentary party room would determine the next steps that week. ABC reported that Waters planned to take medical leave and return to her Senate duties when able.

Pressure over coal and gas

Bandt, now chief executive of the Australian Conservation Foundation, told Guardian Australia there would be ‘no excuse’ for the next leader to allow the Albanese government to approve new fossil fuel development. He said the view from the movement was to stop new coal and gas mines and deforestation ‘by whatever means, whatever it takes to make that happen’. The phrase describes Bandt’s demand of the party, rather than an announced tactic or a commitment by its incoming leader.

He identified several decisions he expects to test the new leadership before the next federal election: whether Labor approves Woodside’s Browse gas project near Scott Reef in Western Australia, permits fracking in the Northern Territory’s Beetaloo basin, or allows datacentres to use fracked gas. The Guardian’s account did not establish the outcome of any of those decisions. Bandt also said a campaign over drilling off Scott Reef had mobilised more than 70,000 people; that participation figure was his claim in the interview.

Brown calls for bigger reforms

Brown called Waters a ‘splendid’ leader, but said her successor needed to win more than incremental changes from Labor. ‘You need a very, very strong and able negotiator, not just to make incremental changes, but very big changes,’ he told Guardian Australia. He said the next leader had an opportunity to challenge the government’s record as well as One Nation, and needed to be capable of taking on both Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Hanson.

That challenge is political as well as parliamentary. The Guardian reported that One Nation’s popularity had risen in 2026 while the Greens’ voter base had not grown significantly. It cited the Greens’ primary vote of 12.22% at the 2025 election, compared with 12.25% in 2022, and reported polling figures that varied across surveys during 2026. The figures are a snapshot of the pressure Brown described, not a prediction of the next election.

The Greens also entered this transition after losing ground in the lower house. The Australian Electoral Commission’s final results show the party won one House of Representatives seat in 2025, down from four at the previous election. ABC reported that Bandt lost his own lower-house seat in that contest. Waters became leader in May 2025 after his departure and has led the party for about 16 months.

Leadership choice remains open

At the time of the Guardian’s 29 September report, senator Sarah Hanson-Young had announced she would seek the leadership. Deputy leader Mehreen Faruqi had also said she would run, with Treasury spokesperson Nick McKim as her proposed deputy. New South Wales senator David Shoebridge had not ruled himself in or out. The report said the party’s two-day retreat in Sydney would address the leadership, but it did not identify a winner.

There is a separate argument over who should choose the leader. The Guardian reported that former Greens MP Max Chandler-Mather had called for rank-and-file members to vote, instead of leaving the decision solely to MPs. The Greens’ official announcement said the party room would determine the next steps. Neither Bandt’s climate demands nor Brown’s preferred negotiating approach establishes what the eventual leader or party room will decide.