Nick McKim says Greens can win additional Tasmanian Senate seat at Labor’s expense

Greens senator Nick McKim says the party has the “momentum” to win an additional Senate seat in Tasmania – and he’s tipped it to come at Labor’s expense.

Tasmanian Greens Senator Nick McKim believes the party can win an additional Senate seat in Tasmania at the upcoming federal election. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Greens senator Nick McKim believes the party can pick up an additional Senate seat in Tasmania and he’s tipped it to come at Labor’s expense.

Senator McKim, who was formerly the state leader of the Greens, has been preselected as the party’s lead candidate on its Tasmanian Senate ticket for the upcoming federal election, due to be held on or before September 27 next year.

In an exclusive interview with the Mercury, he said the Greens could “absolutely” win two seats in the upper house, a feat they have never achieved at a single half-Senate election in any state.

Greens Senator Nick McKim is bullish about the Greens’ chances at the looming federal election. Picture: Linda Higginson

“People know that if they want change, they’ve got to vote for it, and they also know it’s getting harder and harder to tell Labor and Liberals apart, and we offer a genuine alternative to the political duopoly,” Senator McKim said.

“Winning two seats in Tassie is a big ask but we can absolutely do it, and it is our chance to make history. It’ll be a seismic shift in Australian politics if the Greens can win two seats in a state at a half-Senate election.

“But I have to say, momentum is with us.”

The party is fresh off winning five seats at the state election in March, including two in a single electorate for the first time, with Vica Bayley and Helen Burnet prevailing in Clark.

Vica Bayley and Helen Burnet, Clark Greens MPs. Picture: Chris Kidd

In May, former party leader Cassy O’Connor won the Legislative Council seat of Hobart, which was another first for the Greens, who had never won a seat in a single-member electorate to that point.

While Senator McKim said he wasn’t “taking anything for granted”, he believed the Greens could snag an additional Senate seat if they managed to poach between 5 and 6 per cent of the primary vote from the ALP.

“In 2001 we got a bigger swing than that. We’ve done it before and we can do it again,” he said.

The party achieved a 2.9 per cent swing in Tasmania at the last half-Senate election in 2022, while Labor suffered a 3.5 per cent swing against it.

Cassy O'Connor, Hobart Greens MLC. Picture: Nikki Davis-Jones

Senator McKim said the upcoming election would be a “critical” one and the Greens would be campaigning on rights for renters and mortgage-holders, integrity in politics, climate action, protecting forests, and making big corporates pay “their fair share of tax” to help fund cost-of-living support.

The Greens’ other current sitting Tasmanian senator, Peter Whish-Wilson, won a new six-year term in 2022 and is therefore not up for re-election.

Senate support candidates are still being preselected for the Greens, while its Tasmanian candidates for the state’s five House of Representatives seats have been finalised but are yet to be announced publicly.

Originally published as Nick McKim says Greens can win additional Tasmanian Senate seat at Labor’s expense