Council to contest a Senate seat. The resulting casual vacancy was filled by Mehreen Faruqi of the South Sydney Greens. At the 2015 State election current sitting members Jamie Parker, John Kaye and Mehreen Faruqi were re-elected. Two new members were elected to the Legislative Assembly: Jenny Leong in the new seat of Newtown and Tamara Smith in the previously safe National seat of Ballina. The Greens primary vote in Newtown of 45.6% is the party's highest ever primary vote in a lower house electorate. This resulted in five Legislative Council seats and three Legislative Assembly seats. In October 2016, Jan Barham resigned and the casual vacancy was filled a few months later by former federal candidate for Richmond, Dawn Walker. In December 2018, Jeremy Buckingham resigned from the Greens NSW. Buckingham Described the party as "toxic", Buckingham said the Greens had "abandoned the core principles they were founded on" and were more focused on "bringing down capitalism" and "divisive identity politics" than acting on climate change. At the 2019 state election there were two upper house Greens seats up for contest as was Buckingham's. David Shoebridge was re-elected, Abigail Boyd (former federal candidate for Dobell) won one but Dawn Walker lost hers. Each of the three lower house seats were returned with a favourable swing. Federal elections The Greens elected their first ever New South Wales Senator, Kerry Nettle, at the 2001 election, only the second Australian Greens senator elected ever, joining Senator Bob Brown of Tasmania, who was elected to a second term at that election. In 2002, Michael Organ was elected to the House of Representatives for the Wollongong seat of Cunningham at a by-election. Organ was the first Greens member to be elected to a single-member electorate in Australia. At the 2004 Federal Election, the Greens ran John Kaye as their lead Senate candidate but was unsuccessful due to unfavourable preference flows and in 2007 Nettle lost her seat despite increasing her vote from 2001. In 2010 the Greens elected Lee Rhiannon to the Senate. No Greens candidates were successful in the 2013 election. Constitutional Convention In 1997 The Greens NSW formed part of a joint ticket called Greens, Bill of Rights, Indigenous Peoples for the 1998 Constitutional Convention held in Canberra in February 1998. Catherine Moore led the ticket and was elected for NSW. She joined Christine Milne from Tasmania to focus on ensuring that