Larissa Waters has been chosen to lead the Australian Greens and used her first speech to fire off an immediate message to Labor and say she hopes to “welcome” their old chief back into the fold at some stage.

The Queensland senator emerged from Thursday’s party room meeting — which was held a week after former leader Adam Bandt conceded the seat of Melbourne — having taken the wheel.

WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE: Larissa Waters replaces Adam Bandt at Greens leader.

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She was chosen “by consensus, unopposed”, the party’s whip Nick McKim said.

South Australian Sarah Hanson-Young and Mehreen Faruqi from NSW had been tipped to challenge for the position.

Faruqi was announced as the party’s deputy leader, while Hanson-Young will be manager of business. Senator Penny Allman-Payne was named party-room chair.

“I am just so thrilled to have had the support of my colleagues to be the leader of the Australian Greens,” Water said.

Waters, the minor party’s fifth parliamentary leader, said “it’s never been more important to have a strong Greens team”.

“The issues that people are facing are getting harder and are getting worse,” she said.

“We need strong action on the climate, on nature, on the housing crisis, on the cost-of-living crisis and we need our parliament to work to actually meet the needs of the people that it’s been elected to represent.”

Waters said “we stand firm always on social justice and human rights, whether that’s First Nations justice, whether that’s ‘Free Palestine’, whether that’s peace and human rights globally”.

“We will always be there calling out atrocities, calling out genocide and standing strongly on social justice and human rights,” she said.

Bandt led the Greens for five years from 2020, and had held the seat of Melbourne since 2010.

But his career in federal parliament was brought to an abrupt holt when he suffered defeat to Labor candidate Sarah Witty in the May 3 election.

“I want to send all of my love as does our whole team to our former leader, Adam Bandt,” Waters said.

“We miss him desperately. He was a wonderful leader for this party and all of our love goes to him and his family.

“We hope to welcome him back. I can’t strong-arm him just yet but I intend to.”

Bandt said Waters “will fight for a progressive parliament with a heart, and I know she is able to deliver the change people need”.

“Larissa has integrity, intelligence and passion. As an environmental lawyer and Senator, Larissa has been fighting her entire life for people and the environment. And her advocacy for women is second to none,” he said.

‘Labor Party has a choice’

The Greens lost three lower house seats and failed to pick up any extras at the election.

The minor party are left with the Queensland seat of Ryan and 11 senators following Labor’s big win.

Labor has at least 28 seats in the Senate and, with the support of the Greens, has the numbers to get legislation through the upper house.

“The Labor Party have a choice. They can work with us and help people and protect nature or they can choose to work with the Coalition,” Waters said.

“They’re going to need to pick because they don’t have the numbers in the Senate to pass the legislation that they want to work on.

“We want the Labor Party to be bold and we want to help them to fix the problems that people are facing.”