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New Greens deputy leader Steph Hodgins-May brings a decade of climate campaigning and personal tragedy to her new role, signaling a combative approach to politics.
Steph Hodgins-May has been appointed deputy leader of the Australian Greens, marking a significant elevation for the former corporate lawyer who entered parliament in 2024 as a Victorian senator.
From Corporate Lawyer to Greens Deputy
She replaces retiring senator Janet Rice and joins new Greens leader David Shoebridge at the helm of the party. Hodgins-May says she had always been passionate about the climate crisis, shaped by dinner table conversations with her dad, an organic farmer, local councillor and later mayor. But her life fundamentally shifted after her mother was killed in the 2009 tsunami. It was during a subsequent visit to Samoa that she decided she could no longer work as a corporate lawyer.
I knew after the tsunami the livelihoods that had been absolutely destroyed, the people who had lost their lives, and how many epic challenges they were continuing to face on a daily basis because of climate change, she said. My work as a lawyer, sitting up at my desk on Bourke Street in Melbourne felt suddenly just completely and utterly meaningless.
Her path to politics is similar to that of Shoebridge, also a former lawyer who walked away from his career. After quitting law, Hodgins-May travelled to New York and worked as a support negotiator at the United Nations. For AusAid, she worked on climate and food security and the Pacific. I was sitting behind the Australia placard negotiating our positions and feeling like, OK, maybe this is meaningful, purposeful work, she said.
But then when I came home from New York each of those promises started to be unraveled. I realised the laws that were there to protect the environment are not good enough. The positions that we are putting on the global stage can be so easily undone, so where is the engine room? It was in 2011, while watching a 2003 video of Bob Brown protesting against George W Bush in parliament, that she was compelled to join the Greens.
I thought, oh my goodness, the courage and conviction he had to stand up and shout at the leader of the free world out of our parliament, that gave me that spark to be like, this is the courage that I want, she said. This is not incrementalism. This is challenging power. In 2017, tragedy struck again when her dad, Rod, was killed in a car crash by a driver with methamphetamines in his system.
A Long Path Through Green Politics
Hodgins-May was no stranger to politics when she entered parliament in 2024. She had already spent more than a decade on the campaign trail, running four times in two different federal seats in safe Labor electorates. In 2013 Hodgins-May ran in Ballarat, followed by an attempt in Port Melbourne in 2016 before it was abolished and became Macnamara in 2019. She ran unsuccessfully against Labor backbencher Josh Burns in 2019 and 2022.
In 2022, she won just under 30% of the primary vote, with a 5.5% swing to her in a tight three-way contest with Labor and the Liberals. At the time, she was head of Pacific for Greenpeace Australia Pacific. She counts two former Greens leaders as her mentors, Brown and Richard Di Natale. Both say they knew from the first moment they met that she had enormous potential.
Di Natale met her on the campaign trail in Ballarat in 2013 and quickly became a close personal friend. It was obvious to me that she was a really talented, young advocate who had huge potential, and I continued to support her through other campaigns, he said. Di Natale describes her as warm, engaging and with a sharp legal mind, and capable of effectively communicating big policy at a grassroots level.
He says her background and viewpoint as a farmer from regional Victoria is also very different to the Greens stereotype of inner-city lefty. Brown says she brings enormous integrity to the party, and he was the one who urged her to take Rice's Senate spot. She is determined to not just take a seat, but to change things for the better for Australians, and that is not least for the Australian environment, Brown says.
Her Impact Inside the Senate
Hodgins-May is still something of an unknown quantity inside parliament. Labor, crossbench and Coalition sources all offer different accounts of her personality and approach. One Labor MP described her as a decent person and trustworthy, but that she was more protest not policy, more outrage than outcome. Another Labor source said Hodgins-May was of the same ilk as Shoebridge, who they said had a huge ego, but very effective in prosecuting the government in Senate estimates.
Independent senator David Pocock, who was on a gas tax committee with Hodgins-May, said it was clear she cared about the environment and climate. One of the points of difference is she is from a farming family and has a love of nature, he said. One crossbench source said Hodgins-May was very new and figuring out when public servants were bullshitting during estimates or committee hearings.
Andrew McLachlan, a moderate Liberal senator, said he admired her commitment to fighting for the environment, nature and climate justice. She has not left her principles at the door of the Senate, she has brought them into the chamber as an advocate, as you would expect from an accomplished environmental lawyer, he said.
A More Combative Leadership Approach
Hodgins-May says it is frustrating the party has not been able to capitalise on growing anti-establishment sentiment, but believes she and Shoebridge are up to the job, and they do not want to waste a moment. She signals a more combative approach to the leadership. I do have that sense of urgency. Both of my parents have been killed under very sudden circumstances, and that changes you.
It shifts who you are as a person and what you prioritise, she says. We need to work harder, we need to work faster we have got to play hardball. We know that incrementalism is not going to cut it. Di Natale says gaining ground is less about the leadership team itself than external factors, though a key benefit of a leadership change was giving the party a spotlight to push its platform.
Pauline Hanson is a good example of this. Look at the One Nation vote, and ask yourself what has changed.
Australian Greens Deputy Leader Climate Campaigner David Shoebridge
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