Mia Handshin
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Mia Handshin was the Australian Labor Party candidate for the 2007 federal election in the electorate of Sturt which had a margin of 6.8 percent. Two party preferred polling for Handshin in Sturt has been tight, going one or two percent either way from 50-50.[1]
Since 1997, Mia has contributed a weekly column to the opinion section for The Advertiser newspaper in South Australia. In 2000 Mia graduated from the University of Adelaide with a Bachelor of Law (with hons) and a Bachelor of Arts.
Mia's business Mana of Speaking had its genesis in 2005, Mana of Speaking grew out of Mia's experience of over a decade of public speaking, advocacy and engagement. Initially her speaking and involvement focused on issues affecting children and young people, but evolved into the broader areas of social justice, human rights, constitutional reform, leadership, peace promotion and conflict resolution and change for humanity.
At the age of 14 Mia wrote a speech on the concept of a Children's National Council, which was delivered in Federal Parliament, Canberra by Rod Sawford MP. In 1992 Mia was one of the instigators of a Youth Action Group, Tangent, in her local council area. In 1992 she was awarded an Australia Day Young Citizen of the year for her work in facilitating the involvement of young people in council decision making. In 1994 she became involved in the campaign to have the voting age lowered to 16 and the National Children's and Youth Law Centre's National Conference. That same year she attended the Queen's Trust National Capital Seminar with 100 other young Australians.
Mia was chosen to attend The World Summit of Children held in Taiwan in 1997 and as Australia's representative to the First International Commonwealth Parliamentary Association’s Youth Parliament in Manchester at which she was elected Prime Minister. In the same year Mia was elected Youth Governor through the YMCA Youth Parliament Program. She went on to be joint co-ordinator of the program in 1998 and was later appointed Governor General of the National Youth Parliament. Mia was appointed by the Prime Minister to be the South Australian youth delegate to the Constitutional Convention on Australia becoming a republic in Canberra, February 1998.
She held the position of Vice President of the Youth Affairs Council of South Australia from 1998 until 2000 and was a member of the Management and Executive committees of YACSA from 1995 until 2002. Mia was a Board member of the Constitutional Centenary Foundation in 2000 and 2001 through which she participated regularly in debate, discussion and formulation of Australia Constitutional reform possibilities.
In November 1997 Mia won the Community Service Award in the SA Young Australian of The Year Awards. She again won this award, being named the 1999 Young South Australian of The Year and was a national finalist at the Awards in Canberra.
She was co-chair of the Federation Centenary Youth Advisory Committee. She was the SA UNESCO Youth Network representative from 1999 until 2001. In 1999 she attended the first National Youth Roundtable, the Millennium Young People's Congress in Hawaii and the UNESCO General Assembly Youth Forum in Paris. She represented Australia at the Racism: Stop It! Action 2000, Tour and Forum in Canada and was a delegate to the Young People's Conference on the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children in Manila, The Philippines.
In April 2003 Mia completed a 2 month internship with the International Crisis Group in Brussels, Belgium. In 2005 she attended the first Social Artistry Training Intensive on Fraser Island, Australia, the first non-UNDP training program in Social Artistry outside the United States of America and was an elected member of the Governing Council for the University of Adelaide. Mia is currently a member of the Friends of Plan Australia (SA) committee.
