Lisa Singh


Lisa Maria Singh is an Australian politician who was a Labor Party member of the Australian Senate for Tasmania from 2011 to 2019. She had previously been 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 was Australia's first federal parliamentarian of Indo-Fijian ancestry.

Early life

Singh was born 20 February 1972, in Hobart, Tasmania, to a Fijian-Indian father and an English Australian mother. Her father arrived in Australia as an international student in 1963. She 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 is the granddaughter of Ram Jati Singh, who was a member of the Fijian Legislative Council in the 1960s. Her uncle, Raman Pratap Singh, is a Fijian politician who is a past President of the National Federation Party and was a Member of Parliament from 1994 to 1999. He made an unsuccessful attempt to regain his seat in 2014.
In her maiden speech in the Senate, Singh claimed descent from the Rajputs.

Early 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 to 2001, Singh was an adviser to Senator Sue Mackay. Singh then became the Director of the Tasmanian Working Women's Centre, where she campaigned for paid parental leave and equal pay. She is a member of Emily's List, having served 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 at the time of the Iraq war, especially in highlighting the plight of women and children in war.
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. She was convenor of the Australian Republican Movement from 2004 to 2007, and subsequently managed the Tasmanian Government arts unit, arts@work, before being pre-selected by the Australian Labor Party for a House of Assembly seat.

Election to Tasmanian Parliament

Singh was elected to the House of Assembly at the March 2006 state election, as one of the five members for the division of electorate of Denison, and gave her inaugural speech on 18 March 2006. In August 2007, she abstained from voting on a controversial bill supporting Gunns' Bell Bay Pulp Mill, after having failed in an appeal to then-Premier Paul Lennon for a free vote on the matter.
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. As minister, Singh introduced legislative reforms in workers compensation, corrections, climate change and asbestos management.
Singh was defeated at the March 2010 state election. Following that, she 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 on 1 July 2011. On 18 October 2013, she was promoted to the position of shadow parliamentary secretary to the shadow Attorney-General. On 24 June 2014, the federal Labor leader, Bill Shorten, promoted her to the position of shadow parliamentary secretary for the Environment, Climate Change and Water.
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, after the Labor Party's pre-selection ballot for the 2016 federal election, she was relegated to the fourth position on the Tasmanian Senate ticket in favour of John Short, state secretary of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union. At the time, it was considered very unlikely that the Labor Party would win more than three Senate seats in Tasmania, so it was unlikely that Singh would be re-elected to the Senate.
In 2016, with twelve senators to be elected due to the double dissolution, Singh was demoted to the sixth position on the ticket, described in some media reports as "unwinnable". Following a campaign to vote for Singh "below the line" on the ballot paper, she received 20,741 votes, 80% of a quota, which was enough to overturn the party's ticket order and she was elected as the 10th senator elected for Tasmania, with John Short missing out. She was the first person since Bill Aylett in 1953 to be elected to the Senate ahead of a higher-ranked candidate on the same ticket.
In late 2016, Singh attended the United Nations General Assembly as one of two parliamentary delegates to the Australian mission to the United Nations.
At the 2019 federal election, Singh was again placed in the "unwinnable" fourth position on Labor's Tasmanian Senate ticket. Once again there was a campaign for people to support her by voting below the line. She polled 5.9% of the vote, or 0.4 quotas, only slightly fewer than her vote in 2016, but that was not enough to survive, given the higher quota required at a half-Senate election.

Policy Positions

Singh's parliamentary career has focused on the promotion and protection of human rights, international development, refugees, the environment, governance and access to justice, and law reform. She has published widely on these issues. Singh has advocated for advancing Australia’s economic ties with India and the wider Indo-Pacific; climate change awareness; asbestos compensation and law reform; and HIV/AIDS policy. Her achievements include initiating, coordinating and completing enquiries into banning Australia’s domestic trade in elephant ivory and rhinoceros horn and initiating and undertaking an inquiry into human trafficking, slavery and slavery-like practices, which contributed to the adoption of Australia’s first Modern Slavery Act

Refugee advocacy

Singh has been a strong advocate for the human rights of refugees and 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, as well as successfully moving a motion in the senate to call for greater transparency in offshore detention centres.
Singh has spoken widely both nationally and international on refugee policy including presenting at Harvard University’s Kennedy School.

Other causes

Singh has also advocated for a number of international causes including: Rohingya refugees, Tibet, Palestine, and East Timor. She has also had an active interest in supporting women’s rights, the abolition of capital punishment, nuclear disarmament, same-sex marriage, the elimination of land mines, arts and culture, and the environment.