Some facts about the new Greens leader: a champion of science

Australia’s federal parliament may have lost a “tireless” climate campaigner with the resignation of Greens leader and federal Senator Christine Milne, but in the new leader of the Australian Greens it will gain a much needed champion of science.

Former GP and public health specialist Richard di Natale has been elected as the new leader for the Australian Greens, just hours after Milne announced her retirement from the role on Wednesday.

In a statement to reporters directly after the vote, Di Natale described the Greens as “the natural home to progressive, mainstream Australian voters.”

And in response to questions about whether the party would now be more amenable to working with the Abbott government, he said this:

“I’m going to talk to (Tony Abbott) and see if there’s areas where there’s common ground. Sadly I don’t think there are many.”

A member of the Victorian Greens, Di Natale was elected to the Australian Senate in the 2010 federal election, since which time he has secured and spearheaded Senate inquiries into many significant science-based public health policies, including wind farms and climate change.

On climate, di Natale on Wednesday acknowledged Milne’s role as “chief architect” of the (now largely dismantled) clean energy laws that passed through parliament under Labor’s Gillard government, and assured Greens supporters that he would keep up the fight:

“There are 11 members of our party room, with me as leader of that party, who will be doing everything we can to ensure that this country once again starts to do what is our moral responsibility, what is our social responsibility, what is our economic duty and that is to start taking tough action on climate change.”

More broadly, though, he has made his opinions on the importance of science – as well as his disappointment at how it has been misappropriated and distorted in the Australian parliament – very clear.

In a 2013 speech (see video below) during a Senate debate over wind farms and their effects on human health – a bill, he described as “largely the product of …mischief by vested interests” – di Natale lamented the “paradoxical” fact that as our lives became more dependent on science and technology, its status in the public debate was being eroded.

“What we are debating today are matters of scientific fact—are wind farms noisy, how much acoustic energy do they introduce into the environment, does that energy have a direct impact on the human body that can lead to health problems? These are not political questions; they are questions of empirical fact.

“Science is the pursuit of truth; the pursuit of knowledge. As a scientist by training I have always respected, indeed have been in awe of, the scientific method and what it has achieved for the human race. The results are all around us. In a few generations, in the blink of history’s eye, we have seen air travel, electric power and instantaneous global communication all move from the miraculous to the routine.

You’d be hard-pressed finding another pollie who can engage with science on this level in parl http://t.co/JZd8FTSPuE pic.twitter.com/5LsqX6sF8z

Di Natale was also instrumental in the campaign that resulted in the federal government’s Future Fund divesting from tobacco – an experience that might prove useful as the campaign for divestment in fossil fuel assets gains momentum in Australia.

Di Natale is also the Chair of the Senate Select Committee into the Abbott Government’s Budget Cuts and Deputy Chair of the Senate Select Committee into Health.

He 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.