Giz Watson

Political career

Watson joined the Greens WA party in 1990, and in the federal election that year, stood for the House of Representatives seat of Forrest. Shortly afterwards, she became the co-convener of the Greens WA party. Watson was narrowly elected to the state's Legislative Council at the 1996 election, as a member for the North Metropolitan Region. She was re-elected in 2001, 2005 and 2008. At the 2013 Western Australian state election, Watson decided to move Legislative Council regions, switching from running for re-election in her seat in the Northern Metropolitan region, to candidacy in the South West region. However, Watson was unsuccessful as she was not elected in this region.

During her political career she had portfolio responsibilities for an enormous range of matters, including not only biodiversity, environment and climate change but also health, justice and prisons, human rights, mandatory sentencing, and the over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in the criminal justice system. In addition, throughout her Parliamentary career Watson maintained a steadfast commitment to the principles of open and accountable government. Her parliamentary career has been characterised by – in her words – "working in the spirit of consensus but also standing firm on matters of principle". Watson was the first openly lesbian parliamentarian in Australia and she played a significant role in lesbian and gay law reform in Western Australia. Her parliamentary career also included an active role in the achievement of abortion law reform in Western Australia. She also campaigned against female genital mutilation since at least 1998, and in 2004 successfully lobbied Jim McGinty, the WA Attorney-General, to introduce laws making the practice a crime.

Watson was a WA Senate candidate for the Greens in the 2019 federal election but was unsuccessful. She was the Green candidate for the Division of O'Connor in the 2025 Australian federal election.

She was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia in the 2026 King's Birthday Honours for "service to the environment, and to the Parliament of Western Australia".

Personal life Watson, a graduate of Murdoch University from the 1980s, was awarded an honorary doctorate from the university in 2015.