Mehreen Faruqi’s political career has been anything but conventional. An environmental engineer by training, she entered the New South Wales Parliament in 2013, becoming the first Muslim woman in any Australian legislature. Five years later, she moved to the federal Senate, and by 2022, she was the Deputy Leader of the Australian Greens. Now, as the 2025 federal election looms, Faruqi is not only defending her Senate seat in New South Wales but also spearheading some of the Greens’ most ambitious policy proposals.
It’s not every day that an environmental engineer swaps whiteboards and water tables for policy debates and Senate motions. Yet that’s exactly what Faruqi did when she joined the New South Wales Parliament in 2013, becoming the first Muslim woman in any Australian legislature. A few years later, she was appointed to the federal Senate, and by 2022, she’d risen to second-in-command of a party that now sets the tempo for progressive politics in the country.
Now she’s campaigning again. Not with slogans, but with spreadsheets.
At the heart of her re-election drive is a colossal $46.5 billion policy—free university and TAFE for every Australian. The plan, unveiled with party leader Adam Bandt inside the Prime Minister’s own electorate of Grayndler, is as politically audacious as it is economically detailed. It isn’t a throwaway pledge; it’s a proposal costed by the Parliamentary Budget Office and backed, the Greens say, by new taxes on corporate giants. The aim is to scrap tuition entirely, wipe out existing student debt, and rewire education funding.
The policy has been framed as part of the broader fix to Australia’s cost-of-living crunch. As housing prices stretch beyond the reach of renters and wage growth fails to keep up with inflation, the Greens see education as the next fault line—one that they want to close before it cracks further.
Faruqi has been unflinching in her attack on the Albanese government’s “Help to Buy” housing scheme. Instead of helping renters get a foothold in the property market, she argues, the shared-equity model will inflate prices and benefit a fraction of the population. Her solution? Cap rents. Remove tax perks for investors. Pour public money into housing stock, not incentives.
That message seems to be resonating in places the Greens haven’t traditionally dominated. While the party is strongest in gentrified, inner-city electorates, Faruqi’s team says they’re gaining ground in parts of western Sydney, where multicultural voters are increasingly tuning in to the party’s message on fairness and access. Her name, long familiar to university students and climate activists, is now popping up in WhatsApp groups, local Facebook pages and mosque conversations.
Her reach isn’t confined to the domestic stage. Faruqi has placed herself front and centre of Australia’s debate over Gaza, using parliamentary privilege to accuse the federal government of complicity in war crimes. She has walked out of Senate sessions, backed campus protests and denounced both major parties for what she sees as their failure to protect human rights abroad. Her critics call it political theatre. Her supporters call it guts.
There’s no dodging that her approach ruffles feathers. Some within Labor are reportedly frustrated by the Greens’ “purity politics”, particularly as post-election negotiations loom. But Faruqi, by design, isn’t here to make things easy. She often describes herself in three words: “Feminist. Engineer. Migrant.” None of those come with a manual for blending in.
Her political rise has always stood apart. Born in Lahore, Pakistan, in 1963, Faruqi grew up on a university campus where engineering was the family business—her father, brothers, sister, husband and father-in-law all worked in the field. She migrated to Australia in 1992, went on to earn her PhD in environmental engineering from the University of New South Wales, and spent the next two decades working in local councils and universities on sustainability projects—stormwater reuse, rainforest restoration, and integrated catchment management. It’s the sort of professional arc you’d expect to culminate in an academic deanship, not a Senate portfolio.
And yet here she is, with a CV that lets her walk into a policy debate with more technical know-how than most of her colleagues, and a campaign strategy that mixes grassroots idealism with policy rigour.
Election watchers say her position looks strong. The Greens won 11.5% of the NSW Senate primary vote in 2022, which translates to 0.8 quotas—just shy of what’s needed for a guaranteed seat, but well within reach if preference deals hold. With minor parties like the Animal Justice Party and Legalise Cannabis Australia traditionally directing their preferences to the Greens, Faruqi is likely to return to Canberra.
The Coalition is expected to secure three NSW Senate seats. Labor typically picks up two. That leaves one spot—most likely Green’s territory unless there’s an unexpected collapse. And with polling suggesting a stabilised or even rising vote share, Faruqi is already mapping the next three years.
Still, nothing is left to chance. She’s spending time in places like Newcastle, where the Greens pulled in over 20% of the vote last time. It’s a seat that doesn’t impact her own position directly, but every lower house push is a chance to drive visibility, energise the base, and pull more voters into the tent.
Her recent visit to the Hunter region included criticism of Labor’s approval of over 30 new coal and gas projects—a message tailored for younger voters, climate-conscious professionals, and regional communities increasingly aware of the transition challenge ahead.
Inside Parliament, she’s been busy on several fronts. She’s advocated for expanded Medicare to include mental and dental health. She opposed the outsourcing of public sector jobs. She’s pushed through policies banning live sheep exports and restricting greyhound racing. She’s also taken on Pauline Hanson in court—and won—a rare legal victory for a sitting senator in a racial discrimination case.
This year, Faruqi played a central role in expanding the Greens’ education platform, calling for TAFE to be legally prioritised as the default provider of vocational training and demanding protections for teaching staff. She’s also challenged Labor’s international student cap plan, warning that ministerial control over enrolments risks strangling Australia’s vocational pipeline.
It’s not just policy where Faruqi marks territory. Her presence in Parliament is deeply symbolic—her accent and heritage contrast with the homogeneity of most Senate benches. But she doesn’t campaign on symbolism. Instead, she leans on what her constituents seem to value more: clear policies, unapologetic stances, and an engineer’s disdain for vague solutions.
There’s a quiet efficiency to her messaging. Whether she’s talking about tertiary education, fossil fuel subsidies, or Palestine, Faruqi rarely strays from the numbers. She talks about costs, benefits, and mechanisms. Her opponents often fall into the trap of arguing tone. She sticks to function.
That approach has its limitations. It doesn’t lend itself to catchy slogans or campaign stunts. But in a political moment defined by bluster and branding, her style offers a different kind of currency—credibility.
If the projections hold, Faruqi will return to the Senate in May. What happens after that depends not just on how many seats the Greens win, but how much leverage they hold in a potentially fractured Parliament. Either way, Faruqi will be ready. She’s got the numbers. And she’s already done the maths.
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🏛️ Greens' @MehreenFaruqi defends #NSW Senate seat with bold $46.5B free uni/TAFE plan. 🎓 Australia's first Muslim woman MP champions climate, Gaza & cost-of-living reform. 📊 Polls suggest strong re-election chances. #TheIndianSunhttps://t.co/nvLIrnS9D3
— The Indian Sun (@The_Indian_Sun) April 16, 2025
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