Sang Minh Nguyen or Nguyễn Minh Sang (born 1 January 1960) is a

Vietnamese-Australian }) are Australians of Vietnamese ancestry. Vietnamese Australians are one of the largest groups within the global Vietnamese diaspora. At the 2021 census, 334,781 people stated that they had Vietnamese ancestry (whether alone or in combination w ...

politician. He was a Labor Party member of the

Victorian Legislative Council The Victorian Legislative Council (VLC) is the upper house of the bicameral Parliament of Victoria, Australia, the lower house being the Legislative Assembly. Both houses sit at Parliament House in Spring Street, Melbourne. The Legislative C ...

from May 1996 until November 2006, representing

Melbourne West Province Melbourne West Province was an electorate of the Victorian Legislative Council from 1904 until 2006. It was created in June 1904 when Melbourne Province was reduced in size (four members down to two), North Yarra Province and South Yarra Pro ...

Biography

Nguyen was born in the Vietnamese town of

Long Xuyên Long Xuyên () is the capital city of An Giang province, in the Mekong Delta region of south-western Vietnam. History In 1789, a group of explorers established a small outpost in the Tam Khe canal, naming it Dong Xuyen. Sooner after a marketpl ...

. He studied at Lasan Duc-Minh High School in Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City) from 1970–1974, but fled Vietnam in 1977 as a refugee with the fall of the city to the Communists and the end of the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vietnam a ...

, spending 10 months in Leamsing refugee camp in Thailand. After securing refugee status in 1978, he briefly studied at Greythorn High School then completed his secondary studies at Swinburne TAFE in 1980. He became involved in a series of positions related to helping the community, working as a mathematics teacher at the Collingwood Education Centre from 1983 to 1984, as a youth worker at the Ecumenical Migration Centre from 1985 to 1987, and as a coordinator at the Indochinese Communities Council. In 1988, Nguyen was elected to the

City of Richmond The City of Richmond was a local government area about east of Melbourne, the state capital of Victoria, Australia. The city covered an area of , and existed from 1855 until 1994. History Richmond was incorporated as a municipality on 24 A ...

council, becoming at 28 the youngest member of the council and Victoria's first Vietnamese councillor. He later went on to serve as the city's mayor for a year in August 1991, the first Vietnamese mayor in Australia, and continued to serve as a councillor until 1994. During this period, he also became involved with the

trade union A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits ...

movement, serving as a Migrant Liaison Officer for the

National Union of Workers The National Union of Workers was an Australian trade union formed in 1989. History The National Union of Workers of Australia was formed by a progressive amalgamation of unions from 1989 onwards in a time when all Australian unions were merging ...

from 1989 to 1993. In 1993, Nguyen took up a position as a staffer working for then federal

Minister for Foreign Affairs A foreign affairs minister or minister of foreign affairs (less commonly minister for foreign affairs) is generally a cabinet minister in charge of a state's foreign policy and relations. The formal title of the top official varies between cou ...

Gareth Evans. He worked with the Minister for three years before winning pre-selection to contest the safe Labor Legislative Council seat of Melbourne West Province at the 1996 election. Nguyen faced a challenge from left-wing social welfare campaigner

Les Twentyman Leslie Jack Twentyman is a prominent youth outreach worker and community activist in the western suburbs of Melbourne, Australia. Raised in Braybrook, he is one of Victoria's best known social campaigners, on issues ranging from homelessness, dr ...

, who ran as an independent, but Twentyman's vote dropped from 22.9% an earlier unsuccessful 1992 bid to just 10.3%, and Nguyen was elected. As a member of parliament, he served on the Family and Community Development Committee from 1996–99, the Drugs and Crime Prevention Committee from 1999–2006, and the House Committee from 2003–06. He was often a spokesperson for the Vietnamese community in the chamber and elsewhere. In March 2006,

Martin Pakula Martin Philip Pakula (born 7 January 1969) is a former Australian politician. He has been a Labor Party member of the Parliament of Victoria since 2006: in the Legislative Council for Western Metropolitan Region from 2006 to 2010, and then in ...

, who had unsuccessfully tried to unseat former federal Labor leader

Simon Crean Simon Findlay Crean (born 26 February 1949) is an Australian politician and trade unionist. He was the Member of Parliament for Hotham from 1990 to 2013, representing the Labor Party, and served as a Cabinet Minister in the Hawke, Keating, R ...

in a preselection challenge earlier in the month, was selected instead of Nguyen, despite Nguyen being keen to recontest the seat. In 2008 he considered running to be Labor's candidate in the Kororoit by-election.

References

External links

Sang Nguyen in the Victorian Hansard
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nguyen, Sang 1960 births Australian Labor Party members of the Parliament of Victoria Living people Members of the Victorian Legislative Council Mayors of places in Victoria (Australia) Australian politicians of Vietnamese descent Vietnamese emigrants to Australia Victoria (Australia) local councillors 21st-century Australian politicians