Here’s my opinion piece from Monday's Sydney Morning Herald. 

Let’s be done with arbitrary distinctions about who is entitled to certain wages or conditions, healthcare, housing or access to services based on the colour of someone’s passport or the status of their visa.

All people are born free and equal in dignity and rights - and no laws or government policies should ever undermine this.

[UPDATE 19 May 2020]

The Sydney Alliance are calling on the NSW Government to provide urgent financial support for those people in NSW not covered by JobKeeper and JobSeeker. I responded to their letter on behalf of the NSW Greens as the Greens Spokesperson for Multiculturalism and you can find our response here.

[UPDATE 15 April 2020]

We are pleased to support the #unityoverfear campaign - please take a minute to do the same. The anti-chinese and anti-asian narratives and actions are causing many people, including myself, real harm at this time. Racism is NEVER okay.

[UPDATE 31 MARCH, 2020]

Today I wrote to the NSW Premier on behalf of a large cohort of people who live in the electorate of Newtown, our city and NSW, who are currently facing extremely difficult circumstances and have become very vulnerable as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

You can download the full letter here.

Our office has been contacted by a significant number of non-citizens who do not have any resources to support themselves and are not able to access the measures put in place for citizens or those offered yesterday by the federal government to category 444 visa holders.

As the NSW Greens Multicultural spokesperson, I feel very strongly that to ensure a cohesive society where everyone is treated equally and is able to live free from discrimination and racism, we need to ensure that wherever possible all people are able to access basic needs, services and supports without regard to their citizenship status. This is particularly important during times of crisis, and even more so during this current pandemic.

Jenny Leong MP, NSW Greens spokesperson on Housing and Homelessness is urging the Premier to put an immediate moratorium on evictions for people unable to pay rent during the Corona virus pandemic, as well as recommending a number of urgent measures to assist people who are homeless and those living in public and social housing.

A sustained local campaign for a new high school for Sydney began in 2010 and in 2015 had a win when the NSW government announced that it will refurbish the former Cleveland Street Intensive English High School site at the corner of Cleveland and Chalmers Streets, Surry Hills.

The new Inner Sydney High School will have a capacity for up to 1200 students and is enrolling students in stages, with year 7 starting in 2020.

When the catchment area for the new school was first announced in late 2018, parents living just across the road in Redfern were outraged to discover that their homes did not fall within the catchment area for the school, which stretched across the city to Double Bay and Woollahra but not into the neighbouring suburb.

Jenny called a community meeting, met with local campaigners and wrote to the minister to raise the communities concerns and demand answers.

On 22nd Feb this year the community had a win with a revision to the catchment area made to include most of Redfern.

We wanted to take up some outstanding issues during the current Budget Estimates process in the NSW Parliament.

Our office submitted a series of questions (see pages 60-61) to the Minister for Education and her department which were asked by upper house Greens MLC, Mr David Shoebridge and put on notice for response.

We were interested to know how the decision was made to draw the catchment for the school; what plans there were for additional high schools in the Sydney city region; why the Department in its review had made a decision made to cut a couple of blocks of the Bourke Street Public School catchment out of the new Inner Sydney High School catchment; what out of area enrolment requests had been received and what areas had the current Yr 7 enrolments come from and whether they were spread evenly across the catchment.

The responses to these questions (see pages 16-18, Nos 57-64) have now been posted. 

The construction of the new school is due to complete in late 2020 and includes the building of a new 14 storey main building and refurbishment of the existing heritage buildings.

For more details about the construction project visit the NSW Infrastructure website here.
For more information about the school itself including enrolment information visit the Inner Sydney High School website here.

Jenny stepped out of the chamber on Thursday night to update The Project on the bill to decriminalise abortion.

In response to the bullying and corporate exploitation of one of Australia’s most significant and iconic public places - the Sydney Opera House, Jenny Leong MP called out the culture of bullying in NSW, and joined with the community to draw a line in the sand to the Liberal and ALP’s capitulation to corporate bullying and the interests of the racing industry in this state.

Jenny praised the community response to the destruction of iconic street art in Sydney.

Jenny was interviewed on 2SER about the NSW Government's recent changes to the lockout laws.

Broadcast on ABC Sydney Drive, June 19, 2017 [starts at 2 hours, 28 minutes, 30 seconds into the program]

Jenny joined a panel on the Monday Political Forum on ABC Sydney Drive discussing key issues prior to the announcement of the 2017 State Budget.

Topics covered included train accessibility, housing affordability and homelessness, renter's rights, lock out laws and late night transport options, cycle paths and safety.