Australian Greens

The Australian Greens, commonly referred to simply as the Greens, are a left-wing green Australian political party. As of 2025, the Greens are the third-largest political party in Australia by vote and the fourth-largest by elected representation.^{[citation needed]} Following the 2025 Australian federal election, Larissa Waters serves as Leader of the Greens and Mehreen Faruqi serves as deputy leader.

The party was formed in 1992 as a confederation of eight state and territorial parties. In their early years, the party was largely built around the personality of well-known Tasmanian politician Bob Brown, before expanding its representation substantially in the early part of the 21st century. The party cites four core values as its ideology, namely ecological sustainability, social justice, grassroots democracy, and peace and non-violence. The party's origins can be traced to the early environmental movement in Australia, the Franklin Dam controversy, the Green bans, and the nuclear disarmament movement. The party began with the United Tasmania Group, one of the first green parties in the world.

At the 2025 federal election, the Greens lost 3 of their previous 4 representatives in the House of Representatives and retained all 11 of their senate seats. In 2020, the party had ~15,000 members.

The origins of the Australian Greens can be traced to the early environmental movement in Australia and the formation of the United Tasmania Group, one of the first green parties in the world, but also the nuclear disarmament movement in Western Australia and sections of the industrial left in New South Wales who were inspired by the Builders Labourers Federation Green bans in Sydney. Co-ordination between environmentalist groups occurred in the 1980s with various significant protests. Key people involved in these campaigns included Bob Brown and Christine Milne, who went on to contest and win seats in the Parliament of Tasmania and eventually form the Tasmanian Greens. Both Brown and Milne subsequently became leaders of the federal party.

The formation of the federal party in 1992 brought together over a dozen green groups, from state and local organisations, some of which had existed for 20 years. Following the formation of the national party in 1992, regional emphasis variations remained within the Greens, with members of the "industrial left" remaining a presence in the New South Wales branch. Brown resigned from the Tasmanian Parliament in 1993, and in 1996 he was elected as a senator for Tasmania, the first elected as an Australian Greens candidate.

Initially, the most successful Greens group during this period was The Greens (WA), which was still a separate organisation from the Australian Greens at the time. Vallentine was succeeded by Christabel Chamarette in 1992, and she was joined by Dee Margetts in 1993. However, Chamarette was defeated in the 1996 federal election. Margetts lost her seat in the 1998 federal election, leaving Brown as the sole Australian Greens senator.

In the 2001 federal election, Brown was re-elected as a senator for Tasmania, and a second Greens senator, Kerry Nettle, was elected in New South Wales. The Greens opposed the Howard government's Pacific Solution of offshore processing for asylum seekers, and opposed the bipartisan offers of support to ANZUS and the Afghanistan War by the government and Beazley Opposition in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. The party described the Afghanistan commitment in particular as "warmongering". Brown and Nettle's performance in the Senate increased voter support for the party, as it showcased that the Greens were not deep ecologists nor a single-issue environmentalist organisation, thus granting approval from disaffected Labor voters.

On 19 October 2002, the Greens won a House of Representatives seat for the first time when Michael Organ won the Cunningham by-election, triggered by the resignation of Labor member Stephen Martin.