No one can accuse Charlene McLennan of shying away from a challenge.
The family law solicitor and mother of two teenagers is contesting her third election in less than a year, this time as the Greens candidate in the Tasmanian Legislative Council seat of Rosevears.
This story is part of a Pulse deep-dive series on the May 2 Legislative Council elections. To read more about the candidates standing, click here.
McLennan has spent 25 years orbiting the Greens in one form or another.
She worked behind the scenes on campaigns for Bob Brown, Christine Milne and Peg Putt in the early 2000s before leaving Tasmania in 2004.
She didn’t make it back until 2023, and wasted almost no time getting involved again.
She stood as the Greens candidate in the seat of Bass at the 2025 federal election, polling almost 13 per cent of the vote and securing a swing to the party.
She then stood on the ticket for the state campaign, helping Cecily Rosol hold her seat.
Now she is focused on Rosevears, even though she is realistic about her chances.
“Standing as a candidate, even when you are in a seat that is looking like it’s very unlikely for you to be elected in, still gives an opportunity for the public to be able to vote Green,” she said.
“That’s where I’m putting my efforts is to be somebody that can stand for the party and the values of the party so people can vote Green.”
McLennan works full time as a family law lawyer, a role she describes as demanding.
Balancing that with a campaign and two teenage children has made for an intense stretch.
“It’s more than a full-time commitment in life for the period that you’re on the campaign, but I do it because I’m passionate about wanting good representation in parliament,” she said.
“I believe that I would be a good parliamentary representative for the values that the Greens stand for.”
She said her legal background would be an asset in parliament, particularly when it came to scrutinising and drafting legislation.
“I love a good drafting exercise, and I love to get it right,” she said.
“In terms of legislation being effective and not subject to any lack of clarity, definitely my legal mind is inspired by those tasks.”
On the doors in Rosevears, McLennan said cost of living and fuel prices were the issues dominating conversations.
She argued local concerns could not be separated from bigger national and global pressures, particularly with a state budget approaching in May.
“If we’re looking at the priorities of our parliament, and we’re knowing that we have a cost of living crisis and a budgetary challenge coming in May, then we’re needing to look at where we’re getting our revenue from, where we’re spending our money,” she said.
McLennan said the Greens would push for greater revenue from fossil fuels, mining royalties and the salmon industry to fund local community needs.
She was also blunt about the Macquarie Point stadium, which she said remained a sore point for voters despite the upper house vote already having taken place.
“I think there’s still hope that the government might listen to the expert advice that was provided before they pressed onward with it through Parliament,” she said.
She said there was frustration that economic and planning advice against the stadium “wasn’t heeded by either the Labor or the Liberal parties in Tasmania.”
“It’s going to be no surprise that I disagree with spending more than a billion dollars on a stadium when there are costs in this state that have a higher priority, and that might be our hospitals and our education system, and certainly just supporting families generally,” she said.
“I see families in crisis all the time, and I’m seeing that there are needs for supports in our community that aren’t there and need to be funded.”
McLennan also took aim at the incumbent, Education Minister Jo Palmer, pointing to community frustration over the prospect of tax increases for workers while teachers’ pay and conditions remained unresolved after recent union action.
Despite her career as a solicitor, McLennan was keen to stress she didn’t come from a privileged background.
She said she was the first person in her family to get an education above year 12.
Her father ran a cattle farm and her mother ran a country general store seven days a week.
“Neither of them got past the age 12 in school, but they were intelligent, capable people,” she said.
That upbringing shaped her priorities.
She said she was passionate about supporting the agricultural community in the Tamar Valley and the small business owners working through tough times.
“I’ve got a commitment to a future that’s resilient, both environmentally and socially, and that means looking after the environment that we rely on, but also supporting the communities that need to make a living in and around it,” she said.
McLennan said it was time voters looked beyond the perception of the Greens as solely an environmental activist group.
“You don’t have to dig very deep to see really extensive, costed, sensible policies across the board,” she said.
