Everyone’s missed the most shocking thing about the Greens’ top job vote

October 8, 2026 — 5:00am

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It was almost 10 years ago that Mehreen Faruqi, federal Greens senator from NSW and recently defeated party leadership contender, sat on the balcony of the Federal Hotel in Bellingen as the results of a divisive party preselection rolled in.

Faruqi had just vanquished Lee Rhiannon, the hard-left warrior who is perhaps the most significant – and controversial – Greens MP in NSW history.

On the day of the vote, Faruqi was with Jeremy Buckingham, then a NSW state upper house MP for the Greens, along with a small group of other party members. A notable Tree Tory – the pejorative term for the “right”, or more environmental, faction of the Greens – Buckingham had long been at war with the Eastern Bloc, or Watermelon (green on the outside, red on the inside) faction, which Rhiannon led along with David Shoebridge.

In their quest to oust Rhiannon from the party, Buckingham and his faction had decided not to run a candidate to help get Faruqi across the line. He wasn’t alone. There had been a concerted attempt by senior figures from across the party institution to get rid of Rhiannon, part of a long-running putsch by the more environmentally focused Australian Greens against the reds in NSW.

Faruqi was the perfect candidate. Though she was affiliated with the same inner-city, social-justice Greens who – like Shoebridge – were mentored by former upper house........

© The Sydney Morning Herald