Born: 5 November 1968, Malaysia
Died: NA
Country most active: Australia
Also known as: NA
Australian Labor Party politician Penelope Ying-Yen Wong became the longest-serving female cabinet minister in the history of the Australian Parliament on 6 March 2024. At the time, she served as Minister for Foreign Affairs and Leader of the Government in the Senate, a post she’d held since 2022, and had previously served as Minister for Climate Change and Minister for Finance and Deregulation, along with various shadow cabinet roles. As the country’s first-ever Minister for Climate Change, she represented Australia at the landmark 2009 UN Climate Change Conference.
A senator for South Australia since 2002, she was also the first Asian-Australian in an Australian cabinet and the first openly queer woman in Parliament. Although she’d previously endorsed her party’s opposition to same-sex marriage, she was later a key figure in its legalization in 2017.
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