Sarah Hanson-Young

Hanson in 2009

Hanson-Young was a candidate for the South Australian Legislative Council in the 2006 state election, ranked fourth on the Greens' ticket.[10][11]

Hanson-Young was elected senator for South Australia at the 2007 federal election. She was the first Greens senator to be elected in that state, the youngest person—at 25—ever popularly elected to the Australian senate,[3] and the youngest woman ever elected to the Australian parliament (Natasha Stott Despoja was younger at her first sitting, but older at the time of her election).[12] Although the South Australian Green primary vote remained relatively unchanged, preferences from the Australian Labor Party provided the required quota for a Greens senator.[13][14]

As of 2016 Hanson-Young's portfolio responsibilities within the Greens include finance and trade, arts, education, youth, and water and the Murray-Darling Basin.[15]

Hanson-Young became the focus of attention on 18 June 2009, when the Senate President ordered the removal of her two-year-old daughter from the Senate chamber during a division. The rules of parliament at the time did not allow for senators or members to bring their children into the chamber.[16] Public reaction on the matter was divided, and ignited a debate on accommodating children and their careers in the workplace.[17] Despite a delay of seven years, the incident led directly to a change in the rules of both the House of Representatives and Senate, which now allow MPs and senators to care for their children for short periods in the chamber.[18]

Hanson-Young challenged Christine Milne for the Green deputy leadership in October 2010, but she was unsuccessful.[19] Hanson-Young was critical of the Greens supporting the minority Labor Gillard Government, and wanted the party to negotiate with the Liberal Party.[20] However, plans for these negotiations were stopped by Milne.[20]

Following the resignation of Australian Greens leader Bob Brown in 2012, she was again nominated for the deputy leadership but lost by an undisclosed margin to Adam Bandt.[21] Hanson-Young was re-elected to the Senate at the 2013 federal election and again at the 2016 double dissolution election.

In December 2013, Hanson-Young, along with Senators Louise Pratt (ALP) and Sue Boyce (LNP) established a cross-party working group on marriage equality.[22]

In August 2016, Hanson-Young was replaced as the Greens' Immigration spokesperson by Nick McKim. She retained the senior portfolio areas of education and finance.[23]

In July 2018 Senator David Leyonhjelm suggested Hanson-Young should "stop shagging men", during a parliamentary debate on women's safety,[24][25] in response to a parliamentary interjection by Hanson-Young, which Leyonhjelm interpreted as being to the effect of "all men being rapists". Hanson-Young has described the idea of all men being rapists as "absurd".[26] In response to Leyonhjelm's interjection, Hanson-Young called Leyonhjelm a "creep" before he told her to "fuck off".[27] Hanson-Young called for Leyonhjelm to resign after Leyonhjelm refused to apologise and commenced crowd fundraising to pay for legal proceedings to sue him for defamation, claiming that any damages awarded would be donated to charity.[28][29][30] On 14 August 2018, the Greens moved a motion in the Senate to censure Leyonhjelm for his remarks against Hanson-Young which passed 30–28.[31][32] In the defamation court case, Derryn Hinch has given evidence that Hanson-Young had said "women would not need protection" (in the forms proposed by the bill) "if men stopped raping women", and that this did not mean all men raped women.[33]

Hanson-Young won a further six-year senate term in the 2019 federal election, with her party receiving 10.9% of first preference votes, as well as a 5.03-point swing in her favour.[34]