Kerry Michelle Nettle (born 27 December 1973) is an Australian Senator. She was born in Sydney, New South Wales, and educated at the University of New South Wales, where she obtained a degree in environmental science and was active in student politics. She worked as office coordinator for The Greens (NSW) and then as a youth worker. She joined the Australian Greens in 1998 and was elected to the Australian Senate for New South Wales in November 2001, joining Senator Bob Brown.
Nettle is a social radical as well as an environmentalist. She believes in Government ownership of essential services, which include banking, airlines, telecommunications, health and education and other areas privatised in the last two decades in Australia. She argues that private ownership of these assets is "social theft." She is probaly the most left-wing member of the Australian Parliament.
When United States President George W. Bush visited Canberra on 23 October 2003, Nettle and Brown took their opposition to the war in Iraq to the point of interjecting during his address to a joint sitting of the two Houses of Parliament. They wore signs referring to David Hicks and Mamdouh Habib, two Australian citizens currently being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, following their apprehension by United States forces in either (this is disputed) Afghanistan or Pakistan.
Bush accepted the interjections with good humour, but the Speaker of the House, Neil Andrew, formally "named" Nettle and Brown and and they were suspended from the Parliament for 24 hours. Nettle tried to hand Bush a letter from Habib's wife but was stopped by Liberal MPs and Senators who josted her and prevented her from approaching Bush. Liberal Senator Ross Lightfoot reportedly told Nettle to "Fuck off and die."