Jenny Munro

Jenny Munro (née Coe) 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 the sister of activists Isabel Coe and Paul Coe.

Jenny Munro speaking at a demonstration outside State Parliament House, New South Wales

She is an active member of the Waterloo Public Housing Action Group.

Early life

Munro was born to parents Les and Agnes Coe,[lower-alpha 1] who were Aboriginal land rights activists.[3] She is the younger sister of activist Isabel Coe and her brother Paul Coe, and had another sister and brother.[4]

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.[3] In 1972 in Sydney, she met her husband, Lyall Munro Jnr,[2] 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.[3]

In 1978, Munro began work as a trainee bookkeeper at the Aboriginal Children's Services 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.[5] In the 1998 Australian federal election, she stood as an independent in the electoral Division of Sydney.[6]

Redfern Aboriginal Tent Embassy
Jenny Munro accepts award at the National Indigenous Human Rights Awards

On 26 May 2014 Munro launched Redfern Aboriginal Tent Embassy to reclaim affordable Aboriginal housing for the former residents of the area known as The Block. The Embassy despite a stand-off with the Aboriginal Housing Company, which has evicted all the former Aboriginal tenants is continuing to occupy The Block. In February 2015 Aboriginal Housing Company chairman Mick Mundine threatened to commence the eviction of the protesters led by Munro.[7] In Sydney's major newspaper, Daisy Dumas reported that the standoff between the protestors and the Housing Company intensified in 2015 with the matter before the Supreme Court for judgment and with the State Attorney General alerted.[8]

After more than 400 days of the Redfern Aboriginal Tent Embassy, Munro declared victory when the Federal Minister for Indigenous Affairs, Nigel Scullion intervened on the Embassy's behalf and brokered a peaceful resolution between the Housing Company and the Embassy. Scullion committed $5 million of federal funds to the site for 62 affordable Aboriginal housing units.[9][10][11]

Honours

Footnotes
  1. Birth name per Australian Museum entry for Lyall Jnr.[2]

References
  1. "Defiant Redfern tent embassy ignores eviction notice". The Daily Telegraph. Sydney. 23 February 2015.
  2. McBride, Laura (7 December 2021). "Lyall Munro". The Australian Museum. Retrieved 17 November 2022.
  3. Trenoweth, Samantha (12 July 2014). "The AHC and the battle for Redfern's Block". The Saturday Paper. Melbourne, Australia.
  4. Munro, Jenny (24 January 2015). "An interview with Jenny Munro". Gaele Sobott (Interview). Interviewed by Sobott, Gaele. Retrieved 21 November 2022.
  5. Briskman, Linda (2003). The Black Grapevine: Aboriginal Activism and the Stolen Generations. Annandale, Australia: The Federation. pp. 27–8.
  6. "The left in the federal election". Green Left Weekly. Sydney. 30 September 1998.
  7. "Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Redfern: We'll evict them from the block says Aboriginal housing boss Mick Mundine". 23 February 2015.
  8. "Attorney-General alerted as Redfern tent embassy feud intensifies". 10 July 2015.
  9. "Nigel Scullion's mission to stop festering tension among the Block's Aboriginal rivals". 14 August 2015.
  10. "$5 million for Redfern Aboriginal Housing | Nigel Scullion". www.nigelscullion.com. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016.
  11. "Redfern Tent Embassy claims victory with Aboriginal housing deal". ABC News. 26 August 2015.
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