Home Appointments Foreign Minister
Foreign Minister
Australia Department of Foreign Affairs
| Appointee | Penny Wong |
|---|---|
| Role | Foreign Minister |
| Organisation | Australia Department of Foreign Affairs |
| Domain | Cabinet & Government |
| Start | 23 May 2022 |
| End | Currently in role |
| Notes | First woman of Asian background as Australian FM |
Institutional context
The Minister for Foreign Affairs of Australia leads the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Julie Bishop served as Minister from 2013 to 2018 and was the first woman in the role. Wong is the second woman to hold the office and is recorded in the dataset for the additional first of being the first person of Asian heritage in the role.
Career path
Wong was born in Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia, and emigrated to Australia in childhood. She earned arts and law degrees from the University of Adelaide and practised as an industrial-relations lawyer. She has served as a Senator for South Australia since 2002 for the Australian Labor Party. She held cabinet portfolios for Climate Change and Water (2007–2010) and Finance (2010–2013) under Rudd and Gillard. She has been Leader of the Opposition in the Senate from 2013 to 2022 and Leader of the Government in the Senate from 2022.
Appointment
Following Labor's victory in the May 2022 federal election, she was sworn in as Foreign Minister on 23 May 2022 in the Albanese government, days before attending a Quad leaders' meeting in Tokyo.
Tenure
Active. Tenure has covered a substantial regional diplomatic effort in the Pacific, the AUKUS partnership and the associated nuclear-submarine acquisition pathway, climate-policy realignment, and Australian responses to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the conflict in Gaza.
Cluster context
Wong's 2022 appointment is a principal cluster event. Together with Baerbock in Germany (December 2021) and other contemporaneous Foreign Ministry firsts in EU member states, she is part of the cluster's foreign-affairs-ministry sub-pattern.