Jing Shyuan Lee (born 12 June 1967) is a Malaysian-Australian politician elected to the

South Australian Legislative Council The Legislative Council, or upper house, is one of the two chambers of the Parliament of South Australia. Its central purpose is to act as a house of review for legislation passed through the lower house, the House of Assembly. It sits in Parli ...

for the South Australian Division of the Liberal Party of Australia since the 2010 state election. She was formerly the president of the Asia Pacific Business Council for Women.

Early life

After completing primary school in 1979, Lee emigrated from Malaysia to South Australia. During her first years in Australia, she joined an English language program and entered into the public school system. After graduating from high school, she attended the

University of South Australia The University of South Australia (UniSA) is a public research university in the Australian state of South Australia. It is a founding member of the Australian Technology Network of universities, and is the largest university in South Austral ...

where she studied business management.

Political career

Lee ran as the fourth candidate on the Liberal ticket in the

at the 2010 state election. She was elected to the Legislative Council on the back of a 39.4 percent Liberal primary vote. Since entering Parliament, Lee has taken the role of deputy whip of the opposition in the Legislative Council. She is a member of the Social Development parliamentary community. In December 2011, she was promoted to Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Multicultural Affairs and Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Small Business by

Isobel Redmond Isobel Mary Redmond (born 8 April 1953) is a former Australian politician who was the member for the electoral district of Heysen in the House of Assembly from 2002 to 2018. She was the parliamentary leader of the South Australian Division of ...

. In August 2020, Lee's connections to the Xinjiang Association of South Australia, an organization that has denied the existence of the

Uyghur genocide The Chinese government has committed a series of ongoing human rights abuses against Uyghurs and other ethnic and religious minorities in Xinjiang that is often characterized as genocide. Since 2014, the Chinese government, under the ...

and works closely with the

Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China () is the first-ranked executive department of the State Council of the Chinese government, responsible for the foreign relations of the People's Republic of China. It is led ...

, were reported. Following the reports, photos of Lee at the association events were removed from her social media accounts and some federal MPs in her party called for an investigation into Lee's reported links to the

Chinese government The Government of the People's Republic of China () is an authoritarian political system in the People's Republic of China under the exclusive political leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). It consists of legislative, executive, mili ...

on national security grounds. In September 2020, Lee was selected by the Liberal Party as its preferred candidate to become

president of the South Australian Legislative Council The president of the South Australian Legislative Council is the presiding officer of the South Australian Legislative Council, the upper house of the Parliament of South Australia. The other presiding officer is the speaker of the South Australi ...

, where the party did not have a majority. Fellow Liberal

John Dawkins John Sydney "Joe" Dawkins, AO (born 2 March 1947) is an Australian former politician who was Treasurer in the Keating Labor government from December 1991 to December 1993. He is notable for his reforms of tertiary education as Minister for ...

also nominated for the role and was elected by the council, and consequently expelled from the Liberal Party.

References

External links

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Parliamentary profile: SA Parliament website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lee, Jing Members of the South Australian Legislative Council 1967 births Living people Liberal Party of Australia members of the Parliament of South Australia University of South Australia alumni 21st-century Australian politicians Malaysian emigrants to Australia Australian people of Chinese descent Women members of the South Australian Legislative Council 21st-century Australian women politicians Australian politicians of Asian descent Foreign born Australian politicians