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 House ...

representing Newtown for the Greens since

2015 2015 was designated by the United Nations as: * International Year of Light * International Year of Soil __TOC__ Events January * January 1 – Lithuania officially adopts the euro as its currency, replacing the litas, and becomes ...

. Leong is the first person to represent Newtown in its current form, as it was created for the 2015 election.

Political career

Leong served as the

Sydney University Postgraduate Representative Association The Sydney University Postgraduate Representative Association (SUPRA) is the peak body of elected representatives who campaign on behalf of the Research and Coursework Students at The University of Sydney, alongside the University of Sydney Stu ...

President between February 2006 and 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 The Division of Sydney is an Electorates of the Australian House of Representatives, Australian electoral division in the States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales. The division encompasses Sydney central business district, ...

in the

2004 2004 was designated as an International Year of Rice by the United Nations, and the International Year to Commemorate the Struggle Against Slavery and Its Abolition (by UNESCO). Events January * January 3 – Flash Airlines Flight 60 ...

and

2007 2007 was designated as the International Heliophysical Year and the International Polar Year. Events January * January 1 **Bulgaria and Romania 2007 enlargement of the European Union, join the European Union, while Slovenia joins the Eur ...

federal elections, but was unsuccessful. Leong also managed the NSW Greens' campaign for the

2013 federal election The 2013 Australian federal election to elect the members of the 44th Parliament of Australia took place on Saturday, 7 September 2013. The centre-right Liberal/National Coalition opposition led by Opposition leader Tony Abbott of the Liberal ...

. 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 March 2023, Sharpe is the Leader of the Government ...

, during the

2015 New South Wales state election The 2015 New South Wales state election was held on Saturday 28 March 2015. Members were elected to all 93 seats in the Legislative Assembly using optional preferential voting. Members were also elected to 21 of the 42 seats in the Legislative ...

with a margin of more than ten points (

two-candidate-preferred In Australian politics, the two-party-preferred vote (TPP or 2PP), is the result of an opinion poll or a projection of an election result where preferences are distributed to one of the two major parties, the Labor Party and the Liberal/Nati ...

). She joined fellow Green

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 ...

in the lower house of the

New South Wales Parliament The Parliament of New South Wales, formally the Legislature of New South Wales, (definition of "The Legislature") is the bicameral legislative body of the Australian state of New South Wales (NSW). It consists of the Monarch, the New South Wale ...

. In October 2023, Leong signed an open letter condemning attacks against Israeli and Palestinian civilians during the

Gaza war The Gaza war is an armed conflict in the Gaza Strip and southern Israel fought since 7 October 2023. A part of the unresolved Israeli–Palestinian conflict, Israeli–Palestinian and Gaza–Israel conflict, Gaza–Israel conflicts dating ...

Controversy

In early 2024, a video from a Palestine Justice Movement forum in

Bankstown Bankstown is a suburb of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. It is located 19 kilometres south-west of the Sydney central business district and is part of the Canterbury-Bankstown region. Bankstown is the administrative centre ...

held in December 2023 surfaced in which Leong stated: "The

Jewish lobby The Jewish lobby are individuals and groups predominantly in the Jewish diaspora that advocate for the interests of Jews and Jewish values. The lobby references the involvement and influence of Jews in politics and the political process, and ...

and the

Zionist Zionism is an Ethnic nationalism, ethnocultural nationalist movement that emerged in History of Europe#From revolution to imperialism (1789–1914), Europe in the late 19th century that aimed to establish and maintain a national home for the ...

lobby are infiltrating into every single aspect of what is ethnic community groups ... they rock up to every community event because their tentacles reach into the areas that try and influence power”. Leong was strongly criticised for use of the phrase, including by several Jewish community leaders and politicians such, as well as Australian Prime Minister

Anthony Albanese Anthony Norman Albanese ( or ; born 2 March 1963) is an Australian politician serving as the 31st and current prime minister of Australia since 2022. He has been the Leaders of the Australian Labor Party#Leader, leader of the Labor Party si ...

.James O'Doherty and Madeleine Bower
"Jenny Leong accused of using anti-Semitic trope."
''The Daily Telegraph''. 8 Feb. 2024. Accessed 20 Feb. 2024. Leong's use of the term "tentacles" was compared to

antisemitic tropes Antisemitic tropes, also known as antisemitic canards or antisemitic libels, are " sensational reports, misrepresentations or fabrications" about Jews as an ethnicity or Judaism as a religion. Since the 2nd century, malicious allegations of J ...

. Leong apologised for her remarks saying she ""apologise wholeheartedly and unreservedly". Jewish people subsequently protested in front of Leong's office, with some protesters dressed as inflatable squids.

Personal life

Leong was born in 1977 in Adelaide to a

Chinese Malaysian Malaysian Chinese, Chinese Malaysians, or Sino-Malaysians are Malaysian citizens of Chinese ethnicity. They form the second-largest ethnic group in Malaysia, after the Malay majority, and , constituted 23.2% of the country's citizens. In ...

father and an

Anglo-Australian English Australians, also known as Anglo-Australians, are Australians whose ancestry originates wholly or partly in England. In the 2021 census, 8,385,928 people, or 33% of the Australian population, stated that they had English ancestry (wh ...

mother. In 1996, at the age of nineteen, Leong permanently relocated to Newtown. Leong worked with

Amnesty International Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says that it has more than ten million members a ...

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 The Arab Spring () was a series of Nonviolent resistance, anti-government protests, Rebellion, uprisings, and Insurgency, armed rebellions that spread across much of the Arab world in the early 2010s. It began Tunisian revolution, in Tunisia ...

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.

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 21st-century Australian politicians Politicians from Adelaide Women members of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly 21st-century Australian women politicians Australian politicians of Chinese descent Australian people of Malaysian descent Australian people of English descent