About

Jenny Leong is the Greens Member for the Electorate of Newtown in the New South Wales Legislative Assembly. Jenny was elected to Parliament at the NSW state election in 2015. She is the first person to represent the seat of Newtown in its current form - an electorate that was described by election analyst Antony Green as the newest, smallest, and funkiest electorate in the state.

Earlier in her career Jenny worked for a number of years with Amnesty International as a crisis response coordinator and campaigner in London, Hong Kong, and Sydney. At Amnesty International, she oversaw the organisation’s response to the Middle East & North Africa uprising and worked to protect freedom of expression in the lead up to the 2010 Burma elections. Prior to entering parliament, Jenny was the Manager of Community Arts and Cultural Development at the Australia Council for the Arts. While studying at the University of Sydney, she held leadership roles as a fellow on the University of Sydney Senate and as President of the Sydney University Postgraduate Association. 

Since being a member of the NSW Parliament, Jenny has played a key role in a number of significant reforms both inside and outside of parliament - including the decriminalisation of abortion, an apology to the 78ers for the violence they were subjected to at the first Mardi Gras, campaigning to achieve marriage equality, securing protections for renters during COVID, successfully advocating to ensure the NSW daily press conferences were translated in real-time in to multiple languages, as well as mobilising and amplifying the voices of sexual harassment and assault survivors and advocates. 

As the Greens NSW Housing spokesperson, Jenny has led campaigns for renters rights and supported people to navigate the complex and dysfunctional social housing system in NSW.

Jenny is a passionate activist, campaigner, feminist and equality advocate - and as far as she is aware, was the first woman of Chinese Australian heritage to be elected to the lower house of any Parliament in Australia (she is happy to be corrected if this isn’t the case!).