Queensland Greens
The Queensland Greens is a Green party in Queensland, Australia, and a state member of the Australian Greens. The Greens were first founded in Queensland as the Brisbane Green Party in 1984, contesting four wards and for mayor in the 1985 Brisbane City Council elections. Following the collapse of the Brisbane Greens in 1986, the party began to re-form as the Queensland Greens under a national initiative, today's Australian Greens. The Queensland Greens were officially founded as a political party on 22 September 1991 as part of the national Greens alliance. History. The party has been  represented in all three levels of government, with Larissa Waters in the federal Senate, Michael Berkman and Amy MacMahon in the state Legislative Assembly, and Jonathan Sri in Brisbane City Council. Federal parliament. The Queensland Greens' Senate vote at the 2007 federal election increased by 2.1 per cent to 7.5 per cent. It increased further to 12.77 per cent at the 2010 federal election with Queensland Greens' Senator Larissa Waters elected to serve a six-year term, becoming the party's first elected representative. She was re-elected to a three-year term in the 2016 election, but resigned in  2017 after discovering she held dual Canadian citizenship. The High Court ruled that her election was therefore invalid, and appointed Andrew Bartlett, convenor of the Queensland Greens and former leader of the Australian Democrats, as her successor in the Senate. In the 2019 federal election, Larissa Waters was re-elected for a 6 year senate term. Candidates from the Queensland Greens have not been elected to the lower house of federal parliament. Queensland parliament. The Queensland Greens has garnished growing support in state elections, increasing their vote from 2.5 per cent at the 2001 election to 9 per cent in  the 2020 election. The party achieved its first state parliamentary representative in October 2008 when Indooroopilly member Ronan Lee defected to the Greens from the Labor Party. Lee ascribed his move to the Greens due to his dissatisfaction of the Bligh government's environmental policies. Responding to Lee's change of party, Labor's Minister for Climate Change and Sustainability Andrew McNamara rejected his claims, calling the Bligh government "the greenest government that this state has ever had". Australian Greens Leader Bob Brown praised Lee's decision saying, "Ronan Lee's move will give the Queensland Parliament a strong and  intelligent Greens advocate to lead debate on the best social and economic way forward in an age of environmental and economic crisis...Now there will be a responsible voice free to challenge those old Labor and National-Liberal policies which, for example threaten the death of the Great Barrier Reef and tens of thousands of jobs dependent on it within a generation". In the 2017 state election, the Greens won their first ever seat in the state parliament. Following the abolition of the seats of Mt Coot-tha and Indooroopilly, environmental lawyer Michael Berkman won the newly formed seat of  Maiwar. Berkman narrowly won the seat against the LNP's Scott Emerson, a former cabinet member in the Newman government. During the 2020 state election, the Greens gained an additional seat in parliament, bringing their total to two. While Berkman maintained the seat of Maiwar, Amy MacMahon won the seat of South Brisbane from Labor's former deputy premier Jackie Trad. The Greens also had significant success in Cooper, getting 30% of first preference votes, but losing to Labor's Jonty Bush after preferences were delivered. Local governments. Greens candidate Jonathan Sri was elected to represent The Gabba Ward in  Brisbane City Council at the March 2016 local government elections. He achieved a primary vote of 31.72%, a positive swing of approximately 13.8%. Sri finished in second place behind LNP candidate Sean Jacobs, but was able to win on mostly Labor preferences. Sri is the first Greens candidate to win a seat in local government anywhere in Queensland. At the 2020 Brisbane City council elections, the Greens were the only party to have a swing in their favour, at 3.3%. Jonathan Sri retained his ward with a 12.4% swing in primary vote and an overall two-party preferred vote of  65.5%. The Greens additionally entered the two-party preferred vote in 4 other wards where the party came close to unseating the Liberal candidates, including Central (45.2%), Paddington (49.6%), Pullenvale (40.6%) and Walter Taylor (47.7%). 21 out of the 26 wards registered swings towards the Greens. Queensland Young Greens. The Queensland Young Greens are the youth wing of the Queensland Greens and is open to all members under the age of 31 across the state of Queensland. The Young Greens' main focus is on election campaigning, skills training, policy development, and hosting a number of different social events. The youth  wing maintains a grassroots approach in organising members. The youth wing also shares the same policies as the Queensland Greens based around the four guiding principles of non-violence, social justice, grass-roots democracy and ecological sustainability.