Larissa Waters

Larissa Joy Waters (born 8 February 1977) is an Australian politician and lawyer who is currently serving as the leader of the Australian Greens since May 2025. She has also served as a Senator for Queensland from 2011 to 2017, and again since 2018.

Waters was first elected as a Senator for Queensland in 2010 and taking up her seat in 2011, she was forced to vacate the Senate in July 2017 in the parliamentary eligibility crisis, due to her holding Canadian citizenship in violation of Section 44 of the Constitution of Australia. Having renounced her Canadian citizenship, Waters was re-appointed to the Senate in 2018 by the Queensland Government to fill the casual vacancy created by the resignation of Senator Andrew Bartlett. She served as Greens co-deputy leader from May 2015 to July 2017 and again from December 2018 to June 2022, and as her party's Senate leader from February 2020. In May 2025, Waters was elected leader of the Australian Greens, following loss of the seat of Melbourne by then leader Adam Bandt in the 2025 Australian federal election.

Larissa Waters was born on 8 February 1977in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Her Australian parents were in Canada working and studying, but the family left when Waters was an 11-month-old baby, and she grew up in Brisbane.

Waters attended a primary school in Rainworth and completed her secondary schooling at Kelvin Grove State High School.

She has a Bachelor of Science and a Bachelor of Laws from Griffith University and a Graduate Diploma in Legal Practice from the New South Wales College of Law. From 2000 to 2001, she was a legal researcher at the Queensland Land and Resources Tribunal (predecessor of the Land Court of Queensland), from 2001 to 2002 a lawyer at Freehills, and from 2002 to 2011 was a lawyer with the Environmental Defenders Office.

Waters was the Greens' Brisbane Central Candidate in the 2006 Queensland state election, running against premier Peter Beattie, securing almost 5,000 votes. She was the lead Senate candidate for the Greens in Queensland at the 2007 federal election. The party received 7.3 percent of the statewide vote (an increase of 1.9 points), but this was not enough to secure her election. Waters again stood for office at the 2009 Queensland state election, running for the seat of Mount Coot-tha. The seat was held by the sitting Treasurer of Queensland, Andrew Fraser of the Labor Party. She polled 23.1 percent on first preferences, with Ronan Lee (25.9 percent in Indooroopilly) the only Greens candidate with a higher percentage.

Waters was again placed first on the Greens' senate ticket at the 2010 federal election. She was elected with 12.8 per cent of the vote, an increase of 5.4 percentage points. In May 2015, Waters was elected to the Greens' "leadership triumvirate". She was made a "co-deputy leader" alongside Scott Ludlam, with Richard Di Natale replacing Christine Milne as the party leader. Waters was re-elected to the senate at the 2016 double-dissolution election, winning a three-year term with 6.9 percent of the vote.

Waters was forced to resign from the Senate on 18 July 2017, after it was uncovered that she was a dual Canadian-Australian citizen, thereby making her ineligible to be elected under section 44 of the Australian Constitution. Her resignation came four days after her fellow Greens co-deputy leader Scott Ludlam had resigned from the Senate over dual citizenship, which prompted several other MPs and Senators to clarify their citizenship status. Waters stated that she had previously believed she was solely an Australian citizen, and if she had wished to gain Canadian citizenship she would have needed to take active steps before age 21, but had recently discovered she had in fact held dual citizenship since birth. Her seat was filled by a recount, which saw former Australian Democrats leader Andrew Bartlett, who held the second position after Waters on the Greens' 2016 Senate ticket in Queensland, return to the Senate.