New Greens leader Shoebridge turns emotional while recalling mentor John Kaye
David Shoebridge used his first interview as Greens leader to attack Labor on cost of living and housing, while also getting visibly emotional talking about
David Shoebridge used his first interview as Greens leader to attack Labor on cost of living and housing, while also getting visibly emotional talking about the late John Kaye. The new party leader said on 7.30 that the Greens would try to connect with “the majority of Australians.”
Shoebridge, who has taken over the leadership from Larissa Waters, said Kaye was his political mentor and a “bloody fun friend”. Kaye, a former NSW Greens MP, died in 2016.
A mentor remembered
The senator paused as he spoke about Kaye. His voice tightened. The loss still sits close.
“[He was] a person of incredible principle, incredible courage,” Shoebridge said. “Just a bloody fun friend too. We lost him while we were both in state parliament and I so felt that loss and our party felt that loss.”
Shoebridge said Kaye had taken him under his wing for the first four or five years he spent in the New South Wales parliament. He said Kaye taught him how to do politics with principle, and how to keep faith with campaigns and ideas over years.
Politics with patience
That long view mattered, he suggested, because Kaye was already talking about a 100 per cent renewable NSW and a 100 per cent renewable country long before the idea was common. That memory, Shoebridge said, showed the style of politics he wants to carry forward now that he is leading the Greens.
He did not soften his criticism of the government. Shoebridge went after Labor over the cost-of-living squeeze and the housing market, issues that continue to bite in Australia and have echoed in politics across other advanced economies as voters juggle rents, mortgages and energy bills.
The Greens, he said, will try to speak beyond their base. That task is not small. But Shoebridge said the party’s pitch will be about principle, persistence and reaching more Australians. The next test comes quickly, with the new leader already defining himself through both attack and memory.
