HE’S the politician with such magnificent hair it has its own Twitter account. He hasn’t owned a car in more than 15 years and has been known to share a Christmas pudding with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. The son of “Kiwi gypsies’’ travelled the globe before he was a teen, and has turned his hand to everything from graphic designing to filmmaking. But at Greens Senator Scott Ludlam’s heart clearly lies a singular mission to stop us from “cooking the planet”.

He’s passionate, articulate and almost single-mindedly driven in his goal to make the world a better place. But don’t even think about describing the WA Senator as Perth’s most eligible bachelor. He might be single, yes. But eligible? Not so much.

As the 44-year-old argues, his love life — or lack thereof — isn’t a concern, nor a priority. In fact, he can’t understand the interest in it.

“The running joke among the staff crew here was to enter me into Cleo’s Most Eligible Bachelor (competition) — and I just vetoed it,” he says. “I said, ‘No f***ing way’. I’m not interested in that kind of profile. I’m not interested in being interesting for that reason. And so, I guess, that extends a little bit to this conversation.

“I feel as though a lot of the stuff I get to do is extremely interesting — much more interesting than my personal back story.”

The intensely private Greens senator has made a concerted effort to keep his private life private in almost six years in federal Parliament.

But today, as he gets ready to fight for his political survival — five months after winning back his lost seat in the recount of the controversial WA Senate result that saw 1370 votes go missing — he offers a rare glimpse into the man behind the politician.

Ludlam reluctantly outlines a “conscious” decision to remain single and the turning point that came in the wake of his first failed marriage.

“I guess, ultimately, these things are conscious (decisions),” he says, cautiously. “It’s not something that bugs me a great deal. I wouldn’t say the work is all-consuming because it’s not — there is space there for a personal life.

“My colleagues maintain relationships so there’s no kind of ‘Woe is me, parliament makes it too hard to have a personal life’, because evidently it doesn’t. But I’m pretty happy how I am at the moment. It’s working.”

But it wasn’t always that way. Ludlam, when he was a graphic artist, met a fellow artist, fell in love and married her at 27. But the marriage was short-lived, lasting only a year.

“At the end of 1998, I had a marriage that broke up and kind of cast me into a place,” he says. “It didn’t break up appallingly or awfully, but it cast me into one of those crossroads periods you get. It’s like, ‘What the hell next?’.

“I was still too adrift really, and she probably caught me at my worst in terms of just searching and trying to figure out what the hell it was that I was meant to be doing. She was pretty happy to see me turn up (years later) on the internet having done something.

“I wasn’t happy as a graphic designer, really needing a change. I had my head filled up with dangerous ideas around systems theory and ecology and I was developing a bit of an idea of what was going on in the world, that I wanted to make some sort of contribution.”

Ludlam says it was “like a fuse blew” as he listened to a radio interview one afternoon about a Perth rally protesting mining uranium at Jabiluka, bordering on the World Heritage-listed Kakadu National Park.

“I thought, ‘OK I’m going to go to that, I’m going to collect every bit of paper that they have, I’m going to talk to people and I mulled it over on New Year’s Eve (1997-98). I didn’t go out, didn’t see anybody — I was just reading all this stuff, inhaling everything I could find for, against, neutral about the global nuclear industry. And then, early in 1998, I went to my first anti-nuclear meeting up in (then WA Greens MP) Giz Watson’s office in Leederville and was completely hooked.

“I walked out feeling like a different human being. I don’t think my feet touched the ground. It was like, ‘All right, I’ve found home — this is what I’m meant to be doing’ and that was that.”

What he’s “meant to be doing” involves primarily preventing us from cooking the planet, as well as trying to protect people’s rights in the digital sphere — so we’re not tracked all over the internet like microchipped pets — a crusade that has earned him a lifetime achievement award by digital rights groups.

Ludlam’s plan to combat urban sprawl and cut down on greenhouse gas emissions by concentrating housing developments along public transport corridors has found him an unlikely ally in property developers.

His supporters also include John Butler Trio frontman John Butler who describes him as a “great visionary” and “one of the most exciting senators we have in Australia”.

But his endorsement of people such as Julian Assange and US whistleblower Edward Snowden has ruffled feathers. He often goes head-to-head with Attorney-General George Brandis, who last week asked how Ludlam “can hold your head up high when you celebrate a man (Snowden) who, through criminal conduct and treachery, has put Australian lives at risk”.

But finding someone who has a real issue with Ludlam personally, or who can even point to any human failings or eccentricities, is like trying to find a climate change sceptic in the Greens.

Long-time friend and colleague David Paris says “nobody’s perfect”, but Ludlam comes pretty close. He says you’d generally never know when anything was troubling him.

“He’s got an excellent dry sense of humour and he’s very sharp,” Paris says. “He’s incredibly generous and loyal to his mates. His self-effacing nature and humility is just natural.

“His tendency is to keep any of the troubles and stresses to himself. He’s not one to carry on with a raised voice or tantrum in that way.

“He will talk about some of the things that are frustrating him or troubling him, but short of him being a bit quiet or seeming overloaded, you would be hard-pressed to tell that there is anything amiss.”

Paris relishes the “double takes” Ludlam receives when he introduces him to friends who have no idea of his occupation.

“He seems to have this capacity to speak to people in a way that just messes with their preconceived ideas about what politicians are and who Greens are,” he says.

“I’ve noticed that whenever he has met friends through me, it’s always interesting to see the double take that goes on when they realise who he is and what he does for a living. The affection that generates in people is quite something.”

Political analyst Harry Phillips believes Ludlam has a “very measured” approach to politics that will ensure his career longevity.

“He has been a very impressive parliamentary performer,” Phillips says. “I think he’s actually handled the observations about recounts and a half-Senate election well. He gives due respect to the High Court and hasn’t been unwise with his statements.

“It could be said that if he loses his seat, that could be seen as a loss not only to the Greens but also to the parliamentary system.

“I think he has the ability to steer the Greens into policy considerations that don’t completely ignore the majority politics.”

When Ludlam isn’t on the clock he enjoys nothing more than “scratching the creative itch” by drawing and designing — a hobby that has crossed into his political career with the development of his Bike Blackspot app and a 30-minute nuclear energy documentary.

On a day off, you might find him “camped on the water line at Little Creatures with the coldest beer that they can supply”, or “going to a gig at Mojo’s”, though he’s still getting used to being recognised in public these days.

“It’s only in the last six months that that has flipped and now people will come and talk to me on the train and they’ll know who I am, and I found that quite confronting,” he says.

“I’m just not used to that. The fact that the feedback and the conversations are always positive is really gratifying — I feel like I must be doing something right. Irrespective of your political persuasions, people probably have a certain amount of sympathy for everyone caught up in this (WA Senate) election shambles.

“There’s people with their lives and careers on hold right across the spectrum — so that whole process has lifted the profile a bit.”

Ludlam was born in Palmerston North, the son of “Kiwi gypsies” civil draftsman Graham and artist Jude Ludlam. He spent much of his first nine years being home-schooled as his family set off on the ultimate road trip.

They travelled through Burma, India, Nepal, Afghanistan and Europe in a “clapped-out Ford Transit” and “various Kombi vans” before settling in the UK, and then South Africa.

“My earliest memories are conditioned in the fact that the world is round and kids are basically the same everywhere — whether you can speak the language or not,” Ludlam says. “(My parents were) just travellers and they still are.

“Travel is a very important part of their make-up so I think they wanted to get out and see the world as soon as my little brother (Glen) was old enough to do that.

“My folks pulled us out of South Africa when things were starting to disintegrate and the stuff we were being taught in schools was drenched in apartheid, which was pretty scary.

“They (also) wanted somewhere that my brother and I could go to school without too much further interruption — that’s how we ended up in Perth.

“I have a really vivid memory of walking up Brearley Ave out of Perth airport in December 1978, and catching a bus with our little backpacks and pitching our tents at a Midland caravan park where we lived for months while Dad looked for work.”

Fast-forward to September 2008, and Ludlam found himself taking the floor of Parliament for his inaugural speech. The wet-behind-the-ears senator declared: “I am starting my time here on the assumption that every one of us in this building wants the best for our families and friends, wants to serve the community, and wants to pass the place on to our kids in better condition than we found it.”

More than five years later, sitting in his office in the nation’s capital, he pauses, struggling to answer when asked if he still believes that statement today.

“I still think nearly everybody comes into Parliament — a lot of people take a big pay cut, people come into (state and federal) parliament with an ethic of service,” he says.

“And I’m not so naive as to believe that that is the primary motivator of everyone who comes into this building but I was surprised when I got here, particularly in the committee work, how reasonable a lot of people were and how much common ground there was and the opportunities when party political discipline isn’t forcing people to do things.

“And that’s where it all comes unstuck and gets extremely corrupted and it’s why politicians are held in such low standing, I think.

“That’s why you’ll see people come in here and say one thing and then do something completely different. No one comes in here wanting to cook the planet and create species extinction. I really believe that — and yet we are cooking the planet and creating species extinction.

“I think it’s very degrading for people personally to know and this is not a Labor/Liberal thing. I’ve seen it on both sides — the party gets to a certain size and you get rolled, so people will make certain commitments to us and then they get crushed in their own party room and something different happens. Or they say one thing in government and something completely different in Opposition, which is happening vividly before our eyes at the moment. No wonder politicians are held in such low esteem.

“I think what we could do is a great easing of party discipline. When you get a free vote or a conscience vote in here, you see people behaving like human beings. You don’t have to agree with them — but you’ll see heartfelt sincere opinions that aren’t corrupted by party discipline or party politics.”

What also gets under his skin is the misogynistic undertones that creep into lively parliamentary debates. Female politicians, he believes, cop a far higher “tenor and level of abuse”.

“I noticed that most sharply around the refugee debate,” he says. “We can jump up and say things that are very similar but the venom that is directed at our female colleagues — and I suspect this isn’t just in the Greens, this is right across the board — is vile and I don’t know that most male parliamentarians realise how bad it is.”

Ludlam forms part of the Australian Greens’ 10-member team in federal Parliament. Party leader Christine Milne says his work helped ensure there is no radioactive waste dump site at Muckaty, and put a global campaign against mass surveillance on the radar in Australia.

“What he brings to the Greens is a global perspective,” she says. “I can tell you that when it looked like he may have lost the seat, there was an outpouring from across the country from people who work in all these different fields who thought it would be such a tragedy if Scott was to lose that seat — particularly in the online and digital rights community. They said, ‘We can’t lose him, he’s been our strongest advocate’.”

In an ideal world, Ludlam says he would be content if he was living in a solar city sometime in the not so distant future.

“What got me into this gig was the desire to know that by the time we left, we’d turned the ship,” he says. “And the Clean Energy Act, for me, was a moment where I felt the ship turn. We’re not just fiddling around at the margins now. That’s turning the ship — that’s what I want.

“For the six years to come, we’ve got to defend the ground we’ve won already — and we need to build on it.”

And does he picture anyone by his side in that moment?

“I don’t think about it like that,” he says. “That’s what I gave up — life is long and strange. You don’t know who you are going to meet, what circumstances are going to happen — anything at all is possible.”

But his formerly “hardline” stance on children has also lessened slightly, thanks to his “fantastic” five-year-old nephew, Riley.

“I had really ruled it out to be honest until my brother had an extraordinarily adorable boy,” he says. “So anything is possible.”

And what of his “magnificent head of hair” — as it’s often cited on news site Crikey and Twitter?

With a sigh about what the world’s coming to, he credits his Freo hairdresser, Lisa Scott, for his mighty quaff, which has its own fanbase. That’s probably just life when you’re saving the planet with a burning drive — and perfect hair.