Australian Greens leader Larissa Waters has insisted her position is secure after three senators broke ranks to oppose the party’s support for a carbon-credit scheme linked to the proposed Great Koala National Park in New South Wales.
Waters said the disagreement had been handled through “lots of discussions and lots of hugs”, with party members determined to preserve unity despite the unusually public split.
Senators Nick McKim, Vanessa Bleyer and Jordon Steele-John crossed the floor in the Senate on Thursday to vote with the Nationals against the Improved Native Forest Management method. The motion was defeated by 34 votes to 27. ([abc.net.au](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-09-11/koala-park-carbon-credits-vote-divides-greens/107140178?utm_source=openai))
Bleyer, who had been sworn in only days earlier, was seen embracing Waters after the vote. The three dissenting senators later said they respected the position taken by their colleagues but would vote according to their consciences.
Waters said no one in the Greens’ party room had raised concerns about her leadership, despite former leader Bob Brown and former senator Christine Milne opposing the deal.
“I have a really respectful relationship with my colleagues, and that feeling’s mutual,” Waters said.
South Australian senator Sarah Hanson-Young also said Waters’ leadership was “absolutely rock solid”. Sue Higginson, the NSW Greens representative who had campaigned for the scheme, said the debate had been difficult but had not damaged relationships within the movement.
The dispute centred on whether state governments should be allowed to earn Australian carbon credit units by protecting native forests that would otherwise have been available for logging. New South Wales wants to use the mechanism to help establish the Great Koala National Park on the state’s Mid North Coast.
Federal ministers Chris Bowen and Josh Wilson said the Senate decision would allow the scheme to proceed, while enabling restrictions on the sale of credits generated inside the park to certain entities. The government has described the method as a way to support forest protection, regional communities and emissions reduction. ([minister.dcceew.gov.au](https://minister.dcceew.gov.au/wilson/media-releases/joint-media-release-senate-endorse-practical-action-climate?utm_source=openai))
The Greens were divided because they want the forest protected but object to carbon credits that they say can allow major polluters to offset emissions rather than reduce them. Waters argued that the party had secured important safeguards, including limits on logging outside the park and a commitment preventing credits from being sold to fossil-fuel companies.
“This is the first chink in the armour of coal and gas,” Waters said, promising that the Greens would now turn their attention to Labor’s wider climate policy and seek to remove a larger share of the carbon-credit market.
Brown backed the senators who crossed the floor but rejected the suggestion that the split had fatally weakened Waters. He said the Greens’ rules were designed to allow a conscience vote when members faced a serious moral disagreement. ([abc.net.au](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-09-11/koala-park-carbon-credits-vote-divides-greens/107140178?utm_source=openai))
Waters said the party would put the dispute behind it and concentrate on the statutory review of Labor’s Safeguard Mechanism, which governs emissions from the country’s largest industrial polluters.
