Natalie Bennett

Natalie Louise Bennett, Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (born 10 February 1966), is an Australian-British politician and journalist who served as Leader of the Green Party of England and Wales from 2012 to 2016.

Bennett was born on 10 February 1966 in Eastwood, a suburb of Sydney, Australia, the daughter of John and Joy Bennett.

She was born to working class teenage parents: a part-time secretary and an apprentice carpenter.

Her mother was killed in a car crash in 1989.

Having been awarded a scholarship, she was educated at MLC School, an independent day school for girls in Burwood, New South Wales.

Born and raised in Australia, she began her career as a journalist with regional newspapers in New South Wales before leaving in 1995 for Thailand, where she worked for Australian Volunteers International and the Bangkok Post newspaper over the next four years.

She left Australia in 1995, and lived for four years in Thailand where she worked for Australian Volunteers International in the Office of the National Commission of Women's Affairs, before moving to the Bangkok Post newspaper, where she was chief foreign sub-editor.

Since settling in Britain in 1999 she has contributed to The Guardian, The Independent, and The Times.

She settled in the United Kingdom in 1999, and said in a 2013 interview for the Australian Inside Story website about the country of her birth: "I can’t imagine going there by choice."

She then took the degrees of Bachelor of Agricultural Science (BAgrSc Hons) at the University of Sydney, Bachelor of Arts (BA Hons) in Asian Studies at the University of New England and Master of Arts (MA) in Mass Communication from the University of Leicester, graduating from the latter in 2001.

She was the first member of her family to attend university.

Bennett began her career in journalism in New South Wales, where she worked for various regional newspapers including the Northern Daily Leader in Tamworth.

Her election as leader of the Greens came six years after she joined the party in January 2006.

In Britain, Bennett has written for The Guardian's "Comment is Free" section since 2006.

Bennett was also a blogger.

Natalie Bennett joined the Green Party on 1 January 2006.

She was deputy editor and then editor of The Guardian Weekly from December 2007 until March 2012.

She has also worked for the London-based Independent and Times newspapers.

She was the internal communications coordinator on the national executive of the party from September 2007 to August 2011.

Later the same year she stood for the Greens in the Camden Council election in the Regent's Park ward and again in the Camden Council election of 2010 in the Somers Town ward, but was not elected on either occasion.

In January 2010, she was selected to stand for the Parliamentary seat of Holborn and St Pancras.

She came fourth with 2.7% of the vote.

In 2012, she took voluntary redundancy and left journalism.

She stood next in the London Assembly elections of 2012, as the fourth placed candidate on the London-wide list for the Green Party.

On 3 September 2012, Bennett replaced Caroline Lucas as leader of the Green Party of England and Wales.

3,127 ballot papers were returned in the 2012 Green Party leadership elections, a turnout of 25.1%.

This turnout was explained by Bennett in a BBC interview: "if you hold an election in the month of August you kind of expect that turnout won't be particularly high".

On election as party leader Bennett told a press conference that the policies of the Green Party were "the only viable way forward for British people, for the world".

In May 2014 she was selected again to contest the Parliamentary seat of Holborn and St Pancras.

She was re-elected unopposed as leader of the party in September 2014.

In February 2015, an interview with Bennett regarding the funding of house-building on the talk radio station LBC was described by her as "absolutely excruciating".

In a halting interview on LBC in which she struggled to explain how her party would pay for 500,000 new council homes it is pledging to build.

She told Nick Ferrari the policy would cost £2.7bn, prompting the presenter to ask: “Five hundred thousand homes – £2.7bn?

What are they made of – plywood?”

In January 2015 Ofcom ruled to exclude the Green Party from the televised debates surrounding the 2015 election, on the grounds that the party had not demonstrated "significant past electoral support in General Elections".

Bennett called the ruling "disgraceful and indefensible" and David Cameron claimed that he was "quite happy for there to be no debates at all" if the Green Party was not included.

This decision was later reversed, after which the Green Party's support increased again.

The seven-way debate ultimately took place on 2 April, with Bennett present.

Bennett came third in the election to the Labour and Conservative candidates (future Labour leader Keir Starmer held the seat), and in 2016, at the end of her second two-year term, did not stand for re-election as leader.

Bennett was given a peerage in Theresa May's 2019 resignation honours.