Jennie george biography kristina

Australian politician (born 1947)

Jennie GeorgeAO (born Eugenie Sinicky; 28 August 1947) is an Australian politician, and former Australian Labor Party member of the Australian House of Representatives from November 2001 to July 2010, representing the Division of Throsby, New South Wales.

Early life

George was born in Trani, Italy, where her parents Oleg and Natasha were displaced persons from the Soviet Union. Oleg and Natasha separated in 1955 and divorced in 1958. Oleg died in 1960, aged 39, after years of heavy drinking and smoking, during which he was frequently violent towards his wife and sometimes his daughter.^[1] She was educated at the Burwood Girls High School (where she was first called Jennie, as Eugenie was deemed too hard to pronounce),^[1]Sydney University and the Sydney Teachers College.

In February 1968 she married Paddy George, a full-time activist for the Communist Party and NSW State Secretary of the Eureka Youth L