Labor’s Heidi Heck will take on Andrew Wilkie in Clark in ‘uphill battle’

Labor has finally announced its candidate for the seat of Clark at the May 3 election. How they hope to win an “uphill battle”.

***EMBARGOED TILL 30/3/25*** Heidi Heck is the Labor candidate for Clark for the 2025 federal election. Picture: Nikki Davis-Jones

The Labor Party has announced Heidi Heck as its candidate to take on Andrew Wilkie in Clark which she admits will be “an uphill battle”.

The 23-year-old, who says she grew up in a “relatively political household” joined the Labor Party as a 16-year-old when she left school to support her family by working on farms and in kitchens.

“It will be an up-hill battle,” Ms Heck said. “I’m standing because I believe in the values of the Labor Party, and I know that Tasmanians fare best when they have a Labor government.

“I dropped out of school at 16 due to a rather difficult and complex set of circumstances, but I think those circumstances led me to politics because I could see the impact on my life with the decisions that had been made.”

Heidi Heck is the Labor candidate for Clark for the 2025 federal election. Picture: Nikki Davis-Jones

Ms Heck completed her education through free TAFE and is now working full-time in Labor leader Dean Winter’s office and studying a law degree part-time and hopes to practice family law.

“I have seen first-hand the value of strong social services, affordable and accessible health care, and a public education system and only a Labor government can deliver those things,” she said.

“This is what’s in Labor’s DNA, and these are the values I will stand up and fight for.

“I’ll fight every day for more cost-of-living relief, not just for some, but for every Tasmanian.

“Relief like Labor’s 20 per cent off HEC’s debt, cheaper medicines, energy bill relief, free TAFE, free visits to the doctor, and tax cuts for every single Tasmanian.”

State Election 2010, Denison independent candidate Andrew Wilkie

Ms Heck stressed the importance of Medicare and said the Albanese government had opened two Medicare Urgent Care Clinics in Hobart, a free specialist endometriosis and pelvic pain clinic in Glenorchy and made medicines cheaper.

She grew up in regional Victoria and moved to Tasmania in 2021.

“I came for a holiday and never left.”

She will take leave to campaign.

Once a safe Labor seat, independent Mr Wilkie won the seat, previously known as Denison in 2010. At the 2022 election he received 45 per cent of first preferences in a field of eight candidates followed by Labor’s Simon Davis with 18.7 per cent and Liberal candidate Will Coats 15.8 per cent.

Originally published as Labor’s Heidi Heck will take on Andrew Wilkie in Clark in ‘uphill battle’