Federal and state governments have let down the public by failing to stand up for human rights, scrutinise the fossil fuel industry and support asylum seekers, according to Greens MP Jenny Leong.
The NSW member for Newtown said the public expected better values from the politicians they elect.
“There is a need to ensure that when we are doing work in our community that we are always being inclusive and recognising the impact that our words have as public representatives,” she told Central News.
“It’s really critical that we are not shying away from calling out a genocide, or shying away from standing up against racism and discrimination and bigotry.
“That has shaped the way I have done my work for a long period of time and it’s absolutely critical to me that we make sure, as elected representatives, we are able to acknowledge when we have made a mistake, but also to not shy away from speaking out strongly when there are issues of local or global human rights violations that we need to address.”
Leong, who has represented Newtown in the NSW Legislative Assembly since 2015, is a vocal pro-Palestine advocate and said she would not shy away from speaking out despite criticism of remarks she made at a 2024 Palestine Justice Movement Forum in Bankstown.
During the forum, Leong referred to the “tentacles” of the Jewish and Zionist lobby that “reach into the areas that try and influence power”, later apologising after NSW Premier Chris Minns described it as an “antisemitic trope”, and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese called the remark “offensive”.
Commenting on whether the controversy had changed how she communicated on sensitive issues, Leong responded: “Not at all.”
She added that elected representatives needed to acknowledge when they had made mistakes, but should not however, compromise by avoiding speaking up or being pressured into silence.
Leong said she had been particularly influenced by former Greens leader Bob Brown’s stance on refugees, recalling her dissatisfaction with how both major parties sought to battle the issue of asylum seeking.
We know the climate disaster is happening and shamefully, [the] Labor government continues to side with the fossil fuel industry and polluting climate destroyers.
Jenny Leong, MP
“I was very disturbed by the move of both major parties towards trying to blame asylum seekers for the issues in our community,” she said. “And sadly, many, many decades later, we are still seeing those same problems arise.”
Before entering parliament, Leong also worked with Amnesty International on crisis response and human rights issues. She said entering politics was a way to continue that work by influencing how people’s rights were protected within their own communities.
That commitment has also shaped her criticism of the NSW Labor government, particularly over its support for coal and gas expansion.
Leong said climate action was an area where the Greens had struggled to achieve meaningful change, despite their efforts to challenge the government’s policies.
“The area I think where we have sadly fallen short is the inability to stop the New South Wales Labor Party when the government continues to expand coal and gas mines,” she added.
“We know the climate disaster is happening and shamefully, [the] Labor government continues to side with the fossil fuel industry and polluting climate destroyers, as opposed to the communities of the current and future generations that will suffer as a result of a failure of climate action.”
While Leong criticised the government’s climate record, she pointed to rental reform as an area where the Greens had made more tangible progress.
She flagged the party helping bring community campaigning for changes to rental laws into parliament, contributing to reforms that ended no-grounds evictions. The Greens are also working towards introducing rent controls in NSW.
Leong described housing justice as another central priority, arguing housing insecurity and financial stress continue to place significant pressure on communities.
“I want to see housing justice,” she added. “I want to make sure that housing stress and financial stress [are] actually a thing of the past.”
Main image of Jenny Leong Wikimedia.
