Jenny Munro

Jenny Munro (born 1956) is an Australian Wiradjuri elder and a prominent activist for the rights of Indigenous Australians. She has been at the forefront of the fight for Aboriginal housing at The Block in Sydney, and started the Redfern Aboriginal Tent Embassy.^[1] She is sister of the late Aboriginal activist, Isabel Coe.

Early Life

Munro was born to parents Les and Agnes, who were Aboriginal Land Rights activists. She grew up on Erambie Mission, near the town of Cowra, New South Wales. In 1972, Munro's parents took her to the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Canberra, where they joined the protest by sleeping in tents. At the age of 17, she moved to the inner-Sydney suburb of Redfern. In Sydney, she met her husband, Lyall Munro, and they both became founding members of the Aboriginal Housing Company (AHC). Together, she and Lyall moved to an AHC-run house in the Sydney suburb of Marrickville, where they raised two children. She successfully completed an arts / law degree at the University of New South Wales.^[2]

In 1978, Munro began work as a trainee bookkeeper at the Aboriginal Children's Service in Sydney, eventually becoming Administrator of the organisation. She was elected chairperson of the Secretariat of National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care (SNAICC), and was involved in campaigns to convince the New South Wales government to change its approach to Aboriginal issues.^[3] In the Australian federal election, 1998, she stood as an independent in the electoral Division of Sydney.^[4]

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