Richard Di Natale has served stints as acting leader of the Greens in the past, but will obviously have to build his public profile in the new role.
Di Natale was elected as a Victorian senator in 2010. He is a former GP and until now has served as the party’s health spokesman. Di Natale was part of the fiery debate about the Medicare co-payment policy that the government has now abandoned.
His other portfolios were multiculturalism, youth, gambling and sport. He has also served as Chair of the Senate Select Committee into the Abbott Government’s Budget Cuts and Deputy Chair of the Senate Select Committee into Health
Prior to entering parliament, Richard was a general practitioner and public health specialist. He worked in Aboriginal health in the Northern Territory, on HIV prevention in India and in the drug and alcohol sector. His key health priorities include preventative health, public dental care and responding to the health impacts of climate change ... He believes in public health policies that put science and evidence above politics.
Di Natale is the co-convenor of the Parliamentary Friends for Drug Policy and Law Reform, the Parliamentary Friends of West Papua and the Parliamentary Friends of Medicine.
Some more from the official profile:
Richard, his wife Lucy and two young sons live on a working farm in the foothills of Victoria’s Otway Range. The son of Italian migrants, Richard grew up in Melbourne. He played VFA football for six years and is a long-suffering Richmond Tigers fan.
The decision to elect Richard Di Natale as the new leader was announced by Greens senator and returning officer Rachel Siewert.
Adam Bandt - who was earlier said to be one of the contenders - is no longer even the deputy leader. The new co-deputy leaders are Larissa Waters and Scott Ludlam. Ludlam will also have the job of chair of the party room.
Siewert, who will also continue as party whip, would not give any insight into Di Natale’s pitch to the party room.
He will articulate his comments to us at the media conference, it’s not up to me to pre-empt the media conference other than to announce as returning officer that he has been elected unopposed as our new leader.
Siewert said the deputy leaders were also elected unopposed, but would not comment on Bandt’s reasons for not contesting the posts.
She said people within the party were “very emotional” about Christine Milne’s departure.
The 10 Greens senators and one MP are currently deciding on the future leadership of the party.
Most of them were taken by surpise by Christine Milne’s sudden announcement. Ahead of the meeting Greens senators offered some general comments on Twitter:
An extraordinary leader. I am privileged to have worked with @senatormilne - integrity, courage, vision, heart. Thank you, Christine
The Senate - which includes the Greens - have caused the Abbott government considerable headaches with its legislative agenda. The key numbers are that the government needs support from six out of eight crossbenchers to pass any bill opposed by Labor and the Greens.
Coalition’s leader in the Senate, Eric Abetz, who has been at the centre of those negotiations, has issued a statement acknowledging Milne’s “significant contribution to Australian public life”:
She was the first woman to lead a political party in Tasmania, and remains the only woman to lead a party at both a State and national level.
In spite of seldom agreeing with Senator Milne on many policy matters, I acknowledge that she has been a steadying influence on radical elements in the Greens, especially on social issues. I particularly note her cooperation with the Howard and Rundle governments after the Port Arthur tragedy in 1996, at a time when it was vital that political leaders spoke with one voice.
Abetz took the opportunity to issue a plea to the next leader of the Greens to be a little bit nicer to the government:
Having said that, as Leader of the Government in the Senate, I hope that the Greens will take this opportunity with a new leader to reassess their continual opposition in the Senate to government legislation and economic reform.
(One of the issues that the government was particularly angered about was the decision to oppose reindexation of fuel excise. Milne based her opposition on the fact the money would fund new roads rather than public transport.)
The Labor leader, Bill Shorten, has just offered some comments about a leadership vote (but this time he is not involved).
He said:
I’ve just heard about the resignation of Christine Milne. I would like to place on record that she has been a distinguished public advocate in public life for 25 years. I haven’t always agreed with every policy she’s had or every position she’s taken but I can certainly respect the conviction and the passion with which she has advanced her issues and I congratulate her on two and a half decades of distinguished public life.
Just a note about the speculation surrounding deputy leader Adam Bandt. It’s worth remembering that Bandt is the Greens’ only member of the House of Representatives, whereas there are 10 people in the party’s ranks in the Senate.
If the Greens elect him as the leader, he would have no colleagues in the same chamber. The rest of the party would be in the Senate, where a lot of the wheeling and dealing on contentious legislation occurs. This does not necessarily rule him out of getting the top job (the other major party leaders are in the Reps, after all) but it would be an interesting development.
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