history made in nipaluna/hobart 

By Rosalie Woodruff, Leader of the Tasmanian Greens

I’m delighted to share that Cassy O’Connor, former Leader of the Tasmania Greens, has been elected to the Legislative Council! This win makes history, with Cassy now the first Green in the Legislative Council. Her election takes our team of MPs in Tasmania to six! 

Cassy represented Tasmanians in the lower house for 15 years with passion and integrity. She played a leading role in retrofitting nearly 10,000 public houses to make them warm and cheaper to heat, passed critical legislation for trans and intersex people, and organised the first climate change assessments for Tasmania.

She helped pass the largest ever protection of 170,000 hectares of native forests into the World Heritage Area. Between 2010 and 2014 Cassy served as one of the nation’s first Green Ministers, as the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Human Services, Climate Change and Community Development. 

 Mid last year, Cassy stepped down from her lower house seat and leadership of the Greens – and announced she would run for the Legislative Council seat of Hobart at the next election, in May this year. She began campaigning almost immediately, and continued to campaign during the March snap state election, supporting state candidates and fellow MPs. 

 Only weeks after assisting the re-election of Vica Bayley MP, and the historic election of Helen Burnet as a second Clark MP, volunteers rallied around Cassy for her campaign. Our grassroots volunteers knocked on thousands of doors, and leafleted the entire nipaluna/Hobart electorate — twice! On the last weekend of the campaign, we had the biggest doorknock Tasmania has ever seen. Cassy led this collective effort of doorknocking, leafletting, street chatting and wobbleboarding. 

We ran a relentlessly positive campaign, as we had in the State Election, focussed on the issues that matter most to Tasmanians. Protecting our natural environment and action on climate lined up with health, housing and cost of living as the topline issues in people’s minds. 

 Our genuine connections, grassroots campaign and positive messaging paid off. Cassy was resoundingly elected on May 4. 

We are so excited at this step by the Greens into the Upper House, and to have Cassy in that role. She has immense parliamentary expertise after 15 years and her time as a Leader and Minister. She will use the mechanisms of the Legislative Council to fight for affordable rents and homes for people, and against a massive AFL stadium planned for our historic waterfront. She’ll continue to be a voice for our wild places, for animals and the people of Hobart. 

 I can’t wait to see how Cassy helps supercharge the work of the five MPs in the House of Assembly. We are so lucky to have her skills, history and tenacity working in a new space, the Legislative Council, to get outcomes for the people of Tasmania now and into the future. Congratulations Cassy!