Former Queensland Greens senator Larissa Waters says she is “tickled pink” about returning to federal parliament after colleague 
Senator Andrew Bartlett announced his resignation.

She will become the first Australian senator to return to parliament after she was disqualified in July last year over her dual citizenship.

In a statement from the Greens, Ms Waters will become “the first senator section 44’d to return to the seat she won”.

Ms Waters said Senator Bartlett, who replaced the Canadian-born Ms Waters, 41, in the Senate, has done a “really ethical and honourable thing”.

“He’s standing down to focus on winning Brisbane but he’s the first replacement senator who has stood down for the original person and I think that really again speaks volumes for the integrity that the Greens operate with.”

Ms Waters said she was delighted to be making a comeback.

“I’m delighted to be returning to the role of working for Queenslanders and am ready to be their voice again,” Ms Waters said on Saturday.

“After six years in federal parliament and almost a year’s break, I am more committed than ever to cleaning up politics and making it work for people and the planet, not corporate donors,” she said.

“I’ve had a year watching politics from the outside, and it’s clear that people are fed up with the big parties just doing the bidding of their corporate masters and donors.”

I’m delighted to return to work for Qld! I want to clean up politics so it works for ppl & planet, not corp donors https://t.co/16UwCoLDrM

— Larissa Waters (@larissawaters) June 16, 2018

Senator Bartlett will quit in August to run for the federal lower house seat of Brisbane.

“I’m wanting to give that election a red-hot go. It’s a long shot but it’s not an impossibility,” Senator Bartlett told AAP on Saturday.

“Despite the huge importance of the Senate, winning House of Representatives seats is what really turbocharges change, and we sure as hell need a lot of change at the moment,” he said.

Senator Bartlett denied it was the intention all along for Ms Waters to return to the upper house once her citizenship issues had been resolved.

“It wasn’t a plan,” he said.

Today I am announcing I will be resigning from the Senate seat in late August to focus on campaigning for the House of Representatives seat of Brisbane.

— Andrew Bartlett (@AndrewBartlett) June 16, 2018

Senator Bartlett said although it would be a tough ask to oust Liberal incumbent Trevor Evans from the seat of Brisbane, it was possible.

Ms Waters said she did not believe voters would be influenced by the citizenship saga that removed her from the Senate in the first place.

“I think they’ve got more important issues that they’ll be thinking about,” she said.

Super Saturday byelections ‘tough’ for Liberals

Meanwhile, Liberal Party leaders say it will be tough for the coalition to win any of the five July 28 byelections, four which were triggered by MPs facing dual citizenship while Labor’s Tim Hammond retired from the seat of Perth for family reasons.

Liberals believe they have their strongest chance in the Tasmanian seat of Braddon, where former MP Brett Whiteley is running against Labor’s Justine Keay.

Speaking at a Liberal Party meeting in Sydney on Saturday, former prime minister John Howard said the government’s chances in Labor-held Braddon and the Queensland seat of Longman are “very remote”.

Georgina Downer is running in the South Australian seat of Mayo, and Mr Howard said she also faced a difficult battle against independent Rebekha Sharkie.

Parliamentary Speaker Tony Smith issued the writs on Friday for the byelections, the first time so many federal byelections have been held on the one day.

Electoral rolls in Perth, Fremantle, Longman, Braddon and Mayo will close on June 22.

-with AAP