Her great-great-grandfather helped create the National Party. Now she wants to ‘bury it’

Going on holiday is rarely a good idea for a politician, even a minor party senator who has been in the job for less than three years. Newly minted Greens deputy leader Steph Hodgins-May learned that lesson while walking along the beach at Victoria’s Phillip Island last weekend.

While collecting seashells and catching up with friends, she got an unexpected call. Greens leader Larissa Waters was stepping down because of worsening kidney disease. The party’s leadership would be spilled that week. Now was her chance.

Three days later, she was standing before 10 colleagues in a Sydney skyscraper that looked very different to the image one conjures when they hear the words “Greens party room retreat”. Think more fluorescent lighting, less cucumber slices on the eyes.

“I understand I’m pretty new to this parliamentary job. I’m not a polished politician. That’s the reason I should be doing this,” she told the room.

While some in the party say the result had been determined before the meeting began, Hodgins-May still made her case. New leader David Shoebridge offered two decades of parliamentary expertise. She understood her struggling generation and, after three lower house tilts and a run at the Victorian parliament, knew how to run a campaign.

With a six to five vote against new Tasmanian senator Vanessa Bleyer, the party handed Hodgins-May the deputy leadership.

Party insiders weren’t surprised at her elevation. One who spoke to this masthead on the condition of anonymity said Hodgins-May was “universally liked” and would help calm any ructions after an unusually competitive leadership contest in which former deputy Mehreen Faruqi publicly expressed her disappointment at the result.

A brief glance at Hodgins-May’s family makes a path to progressive politics appear to be almost an inevitability. Her partner, Ogy Simic, was a refugee whose family briefly found safe harbour in Germany after fleeing conflict in Sarajevo. Now settled in Australia, he is a director at the Asylum Seekers Resource Centre.

The couple have two young children that Hodgins-May worries may not grow up with the ability to afford their own home or experience a vibrant natural world.

Her mother was a drama and media teacher at an underfunded public school in regional Victoria. Her father, Rod May, was the mayor of Hepburn Shire Council and one of the pioneers of sustainable agriculture in Australia.

Steph Hodgins-May’s quickfire descriptions of her parliamentary colleagues

• Prime Minister Anthony Albanese: “Disappointment” 
• Opposition Leader Angus Taylor: “Who?”
• One Nation leader Pauline Hanson: “Yuck”
• Greens leader David Shoebridge: “Legend”
• Former Greens deputy leader Mehreen Faruqi: “Staunch”
• Greens senator and Shoebridge’s leadership contender Sarah Hanson-Young: “Strong”

“Politics was the dinner table conversation,” Hodgins-May says. “I saw them both fighting for stronger education, that sticks with you.”

It also seemed that politics was in the blood. Shortly before his tragic death at the hands of a driver who later tested positive to methamphetamine, Rod and his eldest daughter were stunned to discover that her great-great-grandfather, William Hill, was one of the founding members of the Country Party, now the Nationals.

“I think there is something to be said for that kind of long line of, you know, farmers’ feeling that they need to get political in order to ensure that we’ve got food to feed our communities,” Hodgins-May said.

“We discovered also that he left the party in disgust when they were forced to vote along party lines. We haven’t got all the details, but we like to think it was at a point where people saw that the National Party simply weren’t there to represent farmers,” she said, bringing even her family history back to a criticism of the major parties which she believes are captured by vested interests.

“There’s a deep connection, I think, to the land, to champions from the regions, in my family, and I’m really proud to continue that.”

Hodgins-May says she told Nationals leader Matt Canavan about her heritage, and he joked that she should attend party events. She responded: “Look, I’m here to bury the National Party. [William Hill] founded it, and I’m here to bury it”.

The tragic death of her father was unfortunately not an unfamiliar experience for the senator. Eight years earlier her mother, Vivien Hodgins, was one of 189 to die in the 2009 tsunami and earthquake that devastated Samoa.

“My dad had called me to tell me, and it was that agonising wait over, you know, 24 hours. Media crew lined up at our gate trying to get any shots they could. I think my sister tweeted a photo of Mum and said: ‘Has anyone seen her?’ And then obviously we got the news that no family wants to hear,” she said.

Months earlier, while working for an organisation in Samoa that promotes women’s economic inclusion, Hodgins-May had visited the palm-lined paradise of Lalomanu Beach and knew her mother, “a real beachgoer”, would love it.

“My mum’s friend survived, and she’s a dear friend. She said mum was just running up and down the beach, telling people to run because she’d seen that the water had receded. She spent her final moments fighting to protect people, and that’s something that I have to connect with,” Hodgins-May said.

Shortly after Vivien’s death, Hodgins-May returned to Samoa, channelling her grief into support for the local community. Money the family raised went towards building a staircase on the beach’s cliff face, an escape route in a future disaster.

“I don’t want anyone to have to go through that doubt and uncertainty. That fear of not knowing what’s happened to a loved one, and unfortunately, that is going to become more and more prevalent as we careen towards climate chaos,” Hodgins-May said.

“I feel an immense responsibility to do anything, everything I can, to ensure that doesn’t happen. To minimise the impacts on families across Australia and across the globe”.

There’s a certain serendipity in Hodgins-May’s elevation coming 17 years to the day after her mother’s passing.

Her new role in a leadership team alongside Shoebridge – who is determined to “replace” Labor – and the Greens’ ownership of the balance of power in the Senate puts Hodgins-May in a unique position of influence as a relative newcomer.

“I feel immensely proud and excited,” she says of the new task, “but I would be lying to say I wasn’t a bit daunted”.

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