Lumen Spring 2021 - Flipbook - Page 21
Senator Penny Wong
Leader of the Opposition in the Senate
Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs
Bachelor of Arts (Jurisprudence)
Bachelor of Laws (Honours) (1993)
“I think what motivates me today is the same
thing that motivated me to stand for pre-selection
nearly 20 years ago, which is: you do this job
because you want to make the country a better
place,” Senator Penny Wong said.
“For me, that has been about an Australia that is
more inclusive, an Australia that's more equal, an
Australia where opportunity is shared.”
A politician for almost two decades with the
Australian Labor Party and the only woman to be
Leader in the Senate – originally in Government,
then in Opposition – Senator Wong is encouraged
by the number of women now holding senior
roles in parliament.
“At a personal level, I
always knew I wanted to do
something to try to make
our community and our world
a better place in whatever
way I could.”
“I’m very conscious I’m the first woman to hold
the position from either side. I'm very grateful
also that on the Labor side the three most senior
people – the Senate leader, the Deputy and what
we call the Manager – are all women: myself,
Kristina Keneally and Katy Gallagher. So that
makes a real change from when I first went into
the Senate, where those positions were generally
or had always been held by men,” she said.
At the age of eight, Penny Wong migrated to
Australia with her mother – an event that set her
on the path to political life.
“I think at a deeply personal level, the experience
of prejudice and discrimination because of being
Asian, when I arrived in this country, certainly
was a formative experience. And my mother has
always been somebody who sought a decent, just,
compassionate society so I think I was imbued
with those sorts of values around social justice
and equality and inclusion.
“And so, at a personal level, I always knew I
wanted to do something to try to make our
community and our world a better place in
whatever way I could,” she said.
“I wanted to be ‘in the room’ where I could be
part of influencing decisions and influencing the
direction that was taken.”
That influence has resulted in many
achievements, such as the affirmative action to
boost women’s representation within Labor,
legislation to set a renewable energy target of
20% in Australia, and being part of a
Government that introduced paid parental leave,
dropped the tax-free threshold and increased
the pension to benefit disadvantaged people,
introduced the National Disability Insurance
Scheme (NDIS), funded the schooling system
through the Gonski reforms, and prohibited
discrimination on the basis of sexuality.
Senator Wong played a critical role in the
legalisation of same-sex marriage in Australia.
“I was really honoured to play my part in that,
both in terms of working to the Labor Party’s
change in position and also making sure the
legislation got through the parliament,” she said.
ABOVE
Penny Wong as
seen in the 1988
Union Students'
Association
Annual Elections
Handbook.
PREVIOUS
PAGE RIGHT
Penny Wong
speaking in
parliament.
Michael Masters,
Getty Images
News, Getty
Images.
ALUMNI MAGAZINE - SPRING 2021
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