Arabic version: لاريسا ووترز تتنحى عن قيادة حزب الخضر بسبب حالتها الصحية

According to The Guardian, Australian Greens leader Larissa Waters will step down because of ill health, with the party room due to meet next week to select a successor. Waters said a pre-existing kidney disease had “declined significantly over the course of recent months”.

Waters said her prognosis for recovery was positive, but the pressures of leading the party, including increased travel, were taking attention away from her health. She will take medical leave and said she intends to return to parliament as Queensland’s Senate representative.

“It has been a tremendous honour to be leader of the Greens, fighting for people and the planet,” Waters said. She said the party needed a leader in good health to prepare for the next election and that its work required more time and energy than she could give while focusing on recovery.

Waters became leader after the 2025 election, when Adam Bandt lost his lower house seat. Deputy leader Mehreen Faruqi and senators Sarah Hanson-Young, David Shoebridge and Nick McKim could contest the expected leadership ballot.

First elected to the Senate in 2011, Waters resigned in July 2017 after discovering she held dual Canadian citizenship during the parliamentary eligibility crisis. She renounced her citizenship and returned to the upper house in September 2018. Waters also served as co-deputy leader under Bandt and former leader Richard Di Natale at various times between 2015 and 2022.