Jenny Leong (born 1977), an Australian politician, is a member of the

New South Wales Legislative Assembly The New South Wales Legislative Assembly is the lower of the two houses of the Parliament of New South Wales, an Australian state. The upper house is the New South Wales Legislative Council. Both the Assembly and Council sit at Parliament Ho ...

representing Newtown for the Greens since 2015. 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 Malaysian Chinese (; Malay: ''Orang Cina Malaysia''), alternatively Chinese Malaysians, are Malaysian citizens of Han Chinese descent. They form the second largest ethnic group after the Malay majority constituting 22.4% of the Malaysian p ...

father and an

Australian Australian(s) may refer to: Australia * Australia, a country * Australians, citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia ** European Australians ** Anglo-Celtic Australians, Australians descended principally from British colonists ** Aboriginal A ...

mother

At the age of nineteen she relocated to Newtown where she has lived ever since

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. 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 Penelope Gail Sharpe (born 22 October 1970) is an Australian politician. She has served as a member of the New South Wales Legislative Council since 2005, representing the Labor Party. Since June 2021, Sharpe is the leader of the opposition in ...

, at the 2015 State election. She won with a margin of more than 10 points (two-candidate preferred). She joins

Jamie Parker Jamie Parker (born 14 August 1979) is an English actor and singer. He is best known for his role as Harry Potter in the original cast for the West End play ''Harry Potter and the Cursed Child'', for which he received a Laurence Olivier Award f ...

in the lower house of the

New South Wales Parliament The Parliament of New South Wales is a bicameral legislature in the Australian state of New South Wales (NSW), consisting of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly (lower house) and the New South Wales Legislative Council (upper house). Each ...

Personal life

Leong was born in 1977, and moved to Newtown in 1996 when she was 19. Leong worked with Amnesty International for approximately five years from 2008 to 2012, as a crisis coordinator and as 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 The Arab Spring ( ar, الربيع العربي) was a series of anti-government protests, uprisings and armed rebellions that spread across much of the Arab world in the early 2010s. It began in Tunisia in response to corruption and econo ...

, as well as protecting freedom of expression in Burmese elections. She also served over three years on the Human Rights Law Resource Centre advisory committee.au.linkedin.com/in/jennyleong/en

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Leong, Jenny 1977 births Living people Australian Greens members of the Parliament of New South Wales Members of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly Flinders University alumni University of Sydney alumni Australian politicians of Chinese descent 21st-century Australian politicians Politicians from Adelaide Women members of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly 21st-century Australian women politicians