Federal election 2025: Giz Watson on a historic political career, climate, environment, and the bigger picture

Greens candidate Giz Watson is returning to contest the seat of O’Connor for a third time at the May 3 Federal election with a focus on the “bigger picture”. The former Greens WA leader believes it’s important to challenge the status quo. “That’s why I’m in the Greens, because we have a long-term view about the sort of depth of changes that we need to make if we’re going to live comfortably in this environment,” she said. Originally from the UK, Ms Watson moved to Australia in 1967 and has lived along WA’s south coast since the 1970s, completing her builders registration at the then-Albany TAFE. Ms Watson said politics was not her first plan but with a growing awareness of environmental threats she joined the Greens, inspired by former senator Jo Vallentine and feeling a passion for many of the party’s policies. “Jo was elected on the platform of nuclear disarmament only, and that was pretty extraordinary,” she said. “It’s interesting how these issues keep on coming around, and we’re now still talking about, potentially, the risks of nuclear power and nuclear warships and all those kinds of things.” Joining the Greens in 1990, Ms Watson has since served in the WA Legislative Council for the North Metropolitan region, having been elected four times. The first openly lesbian parliamentarian in Australia, Ms Watson has advocated for gay and lesbian reform, helping to draft de facto rights legislation for gay and lesbian couples. She has served on the Standing Committee on Estimates and Financial Operations, and previously ran to represent the South West region in 2013 but was unsuccessful Ms Watson is optimistic and realistic of her chances of winning the traditionally conservative seat over. “It’s really important that people have an alternative, as business as usual isn’t going to work for the long term, and I would be confident that we could get the same or a higher vote than we got last time,” she said. Ms Watson is campaigning on a platform of tackling climate change, rent caps, negative gearing, taxing corporations, and building affordable housing for the people of O’Connor and Australia. She said housing availability and the cost of living were crises being felt “acutely” in regional centres and did not just affect people on low incomes. To tackle the housing crisis, Ms Watson supports rent caps and wants to “wind back” negative gearing that she says has “distorted” the housing market significantly. Ms Watson said housing and providing affordable housing for those on low incomes was a human right and a government responsibility — one she planned to address with prefabricated homes. “We can actually put up houses much more quickly than back in my day through prefabricated materials,” she said. “We know that the largest growing cohort of homeless is older women, probably my age, who have either not been in the workforce or haven’t had sufficient super, and they find themselves living in a van or having to stay at a friend’s place. “It is extraordinary that people are having to live in their cars on the streets when we know big corporations, one in three, don’t pay any tax in Australia.” Ms Watson is supporting a push for an inquiry into the duopoly of supermarket giants Woolworths and Coles, and said the Greens would make price gouging illegal. She also supports the policy to ban the live sheep export trade on the grounds of animal welfare, but acknowledges the challenges the local sheep industry will face as a result. She suggested a transition back to locally killed animals and abattoirs with a focus on chilled exports. “It’s not going to be easy, but I do think that if the transition is managed properly, and the investment into local abattoirs is made, then we can actually have a win,” she said. This is the sixth installment of the Albany Advertiser’s series on the Federal election candidates for O’Connor. Read about Liberal incumbent Rick Wilson, Labor’s Darren Moir, Nationals candidate Heidi Tempra, Greens’ Giz Watson, One Nation’s Gemma Johnston and Legalise Cannabis’ Philip Arnatt. Stay tuned for more.

Federal election 2025: Giz Watson on a historic political career, climate, environment, and the bigger picture

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