Portrait
Penny Wong
Born
5 November 1968Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia
Politician, Foreign Minister of AustraliaAustralia

Penny Wong

Born in Malaysia, she became Australia’s first Asian-born cabinet minister and its first openly gay foreign minister.

Penny Wong was born in Malaysia to a Chinese-Malaysian father and an Australian mother. At eight she moved with her mother to Adelaide, where she experienced racism at school. She studied law, worked as a lawyer and adviser and joined the Labor Party.

In 2002 she entered the Australian Senate. In 2007 she became Australia’s first minister for climate change and the first Asian-born person in an Australian cabinet. She later served as finance minister and became leader of the government in the Senate.

Wong is openly gay. For years she followed her party’s line against same-sex marriage, for which she was criticised. She later campaigned passionately for marriage equality. When Australians voted for it in a national postal survey in 2017, she broke down in tears in the Senate – an image that went around the world. She lives with her partner, Sophie Allouache, and their two daughters.

Since 2022 she has been Australia’s foreign minister, and is regarded as one of the most popular politicians in the country.

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