The Canberra Times
By Kat Wong Updated April 20 2025 – 7:06am, first published 7:00am
Donning a gaming headset and a hoodie, a 59-year-old senator has turned to one of the world’s most popular video games as he seeks a victory royale on the youth vote.
In the lead up to the May 3 federal election, Greens senator Nick McKim has begun streaming himself playing Fortnite Battle Royale.
“This is the corner of woke: we are dubbing, we are Griddying, we are fighting faschies,” he told his stream, as he referred to winning, doing the Griddy dance move and standing up to fascists.
The senator is no stranger to Fortnite, having reached level 91 after hours spent playing with his stepchildren.
But the livestream format presents new challenges.
While Senator McKim is trying to communicate with his teammates and beat up to 99 other players, viewers ask unconventional questions.
“Will you smoke a doobie if weed gets legalised?” one said, while another asked, “can you explain the salmon industry in Fortnite terms?”
“It’s supposed to be fun and I’m having fun,” Senator McKim told AAP.
“It’s very unfiltered because what I want to try and do is make politics more relatable and more accessible to more people.”
The Tasmanian senator is not the first politician to hop onto Twitch.
Progressive US Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez garnered more than 400,000 concurrent viewers in 2020 when she livestreamed herself playing social deduction game Among Us as she encouraged Americans to vote.
Canadian MP Jagmeet Singh and former US presidential nominee Bernie Sanders have also taken part in pre-election streams.
Senator McKim’s decision to livestream came from chats with his family and younger staff as they sought ways to reach out to new audiences.
Gen Z and millennials are expected to outnumber baby boomers for the first time when Australians next head to the ballot boxes.
“There is this group of hard-to-reach voters among young people and there’s an increasing number of news-avoiders, people getting fatigued from this relentless spray of bad news,” University of Sydney media expert Timothy Koskie told AAP.
“Traditional news media still has reach, still has the ability to set the agenda, but it’s not necessarily going to reach this group of voters.”
Politicians are throwing everything at the wall to capture their attention.
Independent senator Fatima Payman went viral in September after delivering a “brain rot” speech in the upper chamber that accused the government of “capping” (lying) and assured the crossbench would “mog” on (outclass) both major parties.
Meanwhile, major parties have funnelled resources into TikTok content as their leaders sat down for interviews with influencers.
The Liberals even released a diss-track called “Leaving Labor” that referenced a year-old rap beef between musicians Drake and Kendrick Lamar.
For the Greens gamer, livestreaming offers a more conversational alternative to legacy media’s one-way form of communication.
Senator McKim has so far garnered a few hundred viewers and his staff are considering collaborations in future streams after chatters requested Greens MP Max Chandler-Mather and NSW senator Mehreen Faruqi join the battle bus.
But he is unlikely to try different games any time soon.
“I’m at least a semi-competent Fortnite player and I don’t really want to get on and be a total noob in some other game,” he said.
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