Nicholas Edward McKenna (9 September 1895 – 22 April 1974) was an Australian politician who served as a Senator for Tasmania from 1944 to 1968.

[1] In 1909 aged 13, McKenna and another boy were instrumental in saving the life of a man floundering in the water off the pier at Elwood.

He moved to Hobart in 1929 and married Kathleen Mary Coghlan in January 1930—they had a son and daughter.

[4] He campaigned energetically for the 1946 referendums and, with the passage of the social services proposal, he was in charge of the government's attempt to introduce a national health scheme.

He considered that it was a high point in his career that Australia has "decided not to become a police state".