Nita Green

Green was born in Camperdown, New South Wales.[3] She was raised by a single mother who worked as a nurse.[4] Her mother was born in the United States and arrived in Australia at the age of nine.[1] She holds the degrees of Bachelor of Creative Arts from the University of Wollongong and Juris Doctor from the University of Canberra.[3] While at university she worked in the retail and hospitality sectors.[4]

After being admitted as a solicitor in 2015, Green worked as an employment lawyer for Maurice Blackburn. In 2017, she was the Queensland field director for Australian Marriage Equality during the Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey. She subsequently became an organiser for the Australian Manufacturing Workers' Union,[4] and also worked as a staffer for Senator Murray Watt.[5]

In August 2018, Green won preselection for Labor's Senate ticket in Queensland, as the representative of the Labor Left faction.[5] She was living on the Gold Coast at the time of her preselection, but later in the year she and her wife relocated to Cairns so that her party would have a senator based in Far North Queensland.[6] She was elected to the Senate at the 2019 federal election in first position on the ALP ticket.[2]

Green is a leader of the LGBTQ group Rainbow Labor. She is an advocate for transgender rights in sport, and has said that women who argue that women's sport should be reserved for cis women are transphobic and that such debates are incredibly hurtful for LGBT youth.[7]

On 1 June 2022, Green was appointed as Special Envoy for the Great Barrier Reef by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.[8]