Lisa Singh

Lisa Maria Singh (born 20 February 1972) is an Australian politician who is a Labor Party member of the Australian Senate for Tasmania. She was previously a member of the Tasmanian House of Assembly, representing the division of Denison from 2006 to 2010. The granddaughter of an Indo-Fijian member of the Parliament of Fiji, Singh is Australia's first federal parliamentarian of Indo-Fijian ancestry.^[1]

Early life

Singh was born 20 February 1972 in Hobart, Tasmania to a Fijian-Indian father and an English Australian mother.^[2] Her father arrived in Australia as an international student in 1963.^[3] Singh attended St Mary's College and Elizabeth College before leaving Tasmania to live and work in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. She later returned to Tasmania to study at the University of Tasmania, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts with Honours in Social Geography, and also holds a Master of International Relations from Macquarie University. Singh became a mother to two sons whilst at university.^[4]

Singh is the granddaughter of Ram Jati Singh, who was a member of the Fijian Legislative Council (the precursor to the present day Fijian Parliament) in the 1960s. Her uncle, Raman Pratap Singh, is a Fijian politician who is a past President of the National Federation Party who was a Member of Parliament from 1994 to 1999.^[5] He made an unsuccessful attempt to regain his seat in 2014.

In her maiden speech in the Senate, Singh claimed descent from the Rajputs.^[6]

Career

Following university, Singh worked in public relations and for the Australian Education Union as an industrial organiser. After joining the Australian Labor Party, Singh served on the Tasmanian ALP’s State Administrative Committee, as President of the New Town branch and as a delegate at state and national conferences.

From 1999–2001 Singh was as an adviser to Sue Mackay. Singh then became the Director of the Working Women's Centre in Tasmania where she campaigned for paid parental leave and equal pay. Singh is a member of Emily's List, serving on the National Executive of the organisation in Australia.

Singh became Hobart Citizen of the Year in 2004 for her work in the peace movement surrounding the Iraq war, especially in highlighting the plight of women and children in war.^[7]

Singh has also served as the President of the YWCA Tasmania, the President of the United Nations Association Tasmania and as a member of the Tasmania Women's Council. Singh was also Convenor of the Australian Republican Movement from 2004–2007. She subsequently managed the Tasmanian Government arts unit, arts@work, before being pre-selected for the Australian Labor Party.

Election to Tasmanian Parliament

Singh was elected to the Tasmanian House of Assembly as one of the five Members of the division of Denison in the March 2006 state election. Singh gave her inaugural speech on 18 March 2006.^[8] In August 2007, Singh abstained in a vote on a controversial Bill supporting Gunns' Bell Bay Pulp Mill supported by all fellow Labor MPs, after having failed in an appeal to then-Premier Paul Lennon for a conscience vote on the matter.^[9]

Singh became a Parliamentary Secretary in early 2008. On 25 November 2008, then-Premier David Bartlett announced that Singh would enter Cabinet as Minister for Corrections and Consumer Protection, Minister for Workplace Relations and Minister Assisting the Premier on Climate Change. She was sworn in at a ceremony at Government House on 26 November 2008.^[10] As minister, Singh introduced legislative reforms in workers compensation, corrections and asbestos management.

Singh was defeated at the March 2010 state election. After her defeat, Singh co-founded the Asbestos Free Tasmania Foundation, an advocacy group to highlight the dangers of asbestos and support sufferers of asbestos-related disease and became its first CEO.

Election to Australian Parliament

Singh was elected to the Australian Senate in the 2010 federal election, making her the first person of South Asian descent to be elected to the Australian Parliament. She began her term in the Senate on 1 July 2011. On 18 October 2013 she was promoted to the shadow ministry as Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Attorney-General. Shorten promoted her to Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for the Environment, Climate Change and Water on 24 June 2014.

She serves on a number of Parliamentary committees, including:

• Senate Environment and Communications References Committee
• Senate Environment and Communications Legislation Committee
• Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade
• Joint Statutory Committee on Law Enforcement

Singh is the chair of the cross-party Parliamentary Group on Asbestos Related Disease (PGARD) and the former co-chair of the Parliamentary Friends of UNICEF. Lisa is also the co-chair of the Parliamentary Group on HIV/AIDS bloodborne viruses. Within the Labor Government caucus, Singh has served as Caucus Liaison on the Australia in the Asian Century White Paper and Convenor of Labor Friends of Tourism; and currently serves as Parliamentary co-Convenor of the national policy action caucus, Labor For an Australian Republic (LFAR).

In 2014, she was awarded one of India’s highest civilian awards, the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman, for her exceptional and meritorious public service as a person of Indian heritage in fostering friendly relations between India and Australia.

In 2015, the Labor Party's pre-selection ballot for the 2016 federal election relegated Singh to the fourth position on the Tasmanian Senate ticket in favour of John Short, state secretary of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union. It is considered very unlikely that the Labor Party will win more than three Senate seats in Tasmania, which would be required for Singh to remain in the Senate.^[11]

In 2016, Singh was demoted to an unwinnable sixth position on the ticket.^[12] However, when preferences were fully distributed on 27 July, Singh accumulated over 20,000 below-the-line votes which was enough to overturn the party's ticket order and she was elected before Catryna Bilyk as the 10th elected senator for Tasmania, with John Short missing out.

In late 2016, Singh attended the United Nations General Assembly as one of two Parliamentary Delegates with the Australian Mission to the Untied Nations.^[13]

Policy Positions

Refugee advocacy

Singh has been a vocal opponent of Australia’s offshore detention of asylum seekers. She broke with the Labor Party’s official position to call for an end to indefinite offshore detention on the tv program Q&A,^[14] as well as successfully moving a motion in the senate to call for greater transparency in offshore detention centres.^[15]

Other causes

As well as her work on asbestos, Singh has also advocated for a number of international causes including: Tibet, Palestine, East Timor, and West Papua. She has also had an active interest in supporting women’s rights, the abolition of capital punishment, the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, Same-sex marriage, land mines, arts and culture, and the environment.

References

External links

• Senate web page
• Official website
• Tasmanian Parliamentary Library profile
• Lisa Singh's maiden speech to the Tasmanian parliament
• Summary of parliamentary voting for Senator Lisa Singh on TheyVoteForYou.org.au