Jenny Leong
MP
Member of the New South Wales Parliament
for Newtown
Assumed office
28 March 2015
Preceded byNew seat
Personal details
Born1977 (age 46–47)
Adelaide, South Australia
Political partyGreens New South Wales
ResidenceNewtown[1]
Alma materFlinders University, University of Sydney, University of Technology, Sydney
OccupationHuman rights campaigner and politician
WebsiteOfficial website

Jenny Leong (born 1977), an Australian politician, is a member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly representing Newtown for the Greens since 2015.[2] Leong is the first person to represent Newtown in its current form, as it was created for the 2015 election.

Early life

Leong was born in Adelaide to a Chinese Malaysian father and an Anglo-Australian mother.[3] At the age of nineteen she relocated to Newtown where she has lived ever since.[4]

Political career

At university Leong served as the Sydney University Postgraduate Representative Association President, for 18 months, from February 2006 to July 2007. Leong was elected to the Sydney University Senate in 2007, serving for one year.

She was the Greens candidate for the division of Sydney at the 2004 and 2007 federal elections, but was unsuccessful.[5] Leong also managed the NSW Greens' campaign for the 2013 federal election.

Leong won the newly created seat of Newtown against Labor's candidate, Penny Sharpe, at the 2015 State election. She won with a margin of more than 10 points (two-candidate-preferred).[6][4] She joins Jamie Parker in the lower house of the New South Wales Parliament.

In October 2023, Leong signed an open letter which condemned attacks against Israeli and Palestinian civilians during the 2023 Israel–Hamas war.[7]

Personal life

Leong standing with Aboriginal elder Jenny Munro

Leong was born in 1977,[8][9] and moved to Newtown in 1996 when she was 19.

Leong worked with Amnesty International from 2008 to 2012 as a crisis coordinator and a campaign organiser before entering politics. Although based in London, Hong Kong, and Australia, Leong worked all over the world. At Amnesty she oversaw the organisation's response to the Arab Spring as well as protecting freedom of expression in Burmese elections. She also spent more than three years on the Human Rights Law Resource Centre advisory committee.[10]

References

  1. ↑ "Candidates - The Legislative Assembly District of Newtown". Elections NSW. New South Wales Electoral Commission. Retrieved 3 April 2023.
  2. ↑ "Ms Jenny LEONG, MP". Members of the Parliament of New South Wales. Retrieved 6 April 2019.
  3. ↑ Patty, Anna (12 November 2021). "Greens MP Jenny Leong learns she could never live on the breadline". The Sydney Morning Herald.
  4. 1 2 "Newtown - NSW Election 2015". ABC News. ABC. Retrieved 24 May 2023.
  5. ↑ "2004 Federal Election, Sydney". ABC News. Retrieved 28 March 2015.
  6. ↑ Hasham, Nicole. "NSW Election 2015: Greens celebrate strong inner west showing against Labor". Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 28 March 2015.
  7. ↑ "'Catastrophic crisis': NSW politicians release open letter supporting Palestinian communities". ABC News. 19 October 2023. Retrieved 30 November 2023.
  8. ↑ Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine: "Jenny Leong for Newtown". YouTube.
  9. ↑ "20 Questions: Jenny Leong". Australian Greens. Archived from the original on 2 April 2015.
  10. ↑ Jenny Leong on LinkedIn

 

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