Cate Faehrmann (born 17 March 1970) is an Australian politician and environmental activist. Faehrmann was a Greens member of the New South Wales Legislative Council from 2011 to 2013. She resigned from the Legislative Council in June 2013 to stand for the Senate at the federal election of the same year and was unsuccessful in obtaining a seat. She worked in the office of the Leader of the Australian Greens, Richard Di Natale, as his chief of staff from May 2015 to March 2018. In August 2018 she was re-elected to the Legislative Council to fill the casual vacancy caused by the resignation of Mehreen Faruqi, who had replaced Lee Rhiannon in the Australian Senate. Early life Faehrmann was born in Darlinghurst, New South Wales and spent her childhood in a small country town west of Brisbane. Her adoptive parents ran the local chemist, and she attended a Toowoomba boarding high school. She attended Griffith University in Queensland, where she worked to establish a Women's Collective on campus, and was active in pro-choice campaigns at the time. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from La Trobe University. She was a founding board member of the progressive political organisation GetUp in 2005, and was also on the board of the public interest environmental law firm, the Environmental Defenders Office of NSW from 2004 onwards. In 2005 she was appointed executive director of the Nature Conservation Council of NSW. While heading up the Council, Faehrmann launched the Walk Against Warming initiative, an annual community call to action on tackling climate change, which drew crowds of tens of thousands in Sydney in other cities across Australia and the world. Political career Between 2001 and 2005, Faehrmann worked as a media advisor and campaign coordinator for the Greens party in South Australia, New South Wales and New Zealand. She was preselected to fill the casual vacancy left by the resignation of Lee Rhiannon and took her place in the NSW Legislative Council in September 2010. Following the 2011 state election, Faehrmann published a controversial opinion piece in the Sydney Morning Herald in which she was critical of the Greens' campaign strategy. She encouraged a period of internal reflection, writing: "The necessary soul searching is not just about the party's future fortunes. Climate change, the loss of native plants and animals, the need to foster healthy communities, the reduction of air and water pollution,