Allegra Spender

Allegra Spender is the Independent Member for Wentworth. She was elected in May 2022 on a platform climate action, political integrity, future-focused economic reform, gender equity and decency.
Allegra went to Ascham School in Edgecliff, has an Economics degree from Cambridge University, an MSc from the University of London, and has completed business courses at Harvard and Dartmouth College.
Before parliament, Allegra worked as a business analyst at McKinsey, a policy analyst with UK Treasury and was later the Managing Director at Carla Zampatti Pty Ltd. Allegra was also the chair of the Sydney Renewable Power Company and CEO of the Australian Business and Community Network, which addresses educational disadvantage by partnering low socio-economic schools with leading Australian businesses.

As an MP, Allegra has taken a leading role within the crossbench on climate action. This has included through the legislation of targets for reducing Australia’s CO2 emissions, strengthened reforms to the safeguard mechanism, and investment in electrifying and decarbonizing households. Allegra has also been driving future-focused economic reform, by initiating her own tax review process and putting forward a citizens’ assembly to break the political impasse on housing policy. Allegra has also successfully advocated for the establishment of a National Anti-Corruption Commission, greater investment in women’s economic empowerment, and a more humane approach to the treatment of refugees and people seeking asylum.
Allegra is a member of the House Standing Committee on Economics and the Joint Standing Committee on Migration. She is also co-chair of the Parliamentary Friends of Uluru Statement from the Heart, the Parliamentary Friends of Entrepreneurs, Small and Medium Business, and the Parliamentary Friends of International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA).
Allegra is married with three children and in her spare time is a keen runner.

Director and Founder of the Centre for Independent Studies

Professor of Public Policy and Director, Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis in the Crawford School of Public Policy at the Australian National University

 

Sociologist, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Sydney.
Author of The New Authoritarianism

Director, Free Market Foundation, (Hungary)

Health Director, Health and BioSecurity, CSIRO

Director and Founder, Academy of Ideas, London, (UK)

Founder and CEO, Cognoscenti Group

Executive Director, The New Zealand Initiative (NZ)

Australian writer and columnist for the News Limited Press

Research Director, CIS

Programme Co-ordinator of the Masters of Urban and Regional Planning, The University of Western Australia

Chinese Canadian human rights advocate

Senior Research Fellow, Culture, Prosperity & Civil Society Program, CIS

CEO and Founding Director, China Matters

Former Liberal member of the Australian House of Representatives and Cabinet Minister

Pro Vice-Chancellor Arts and Academic Culture, and Professor of History, Australian Catholic University

Cancer researcher and clinical oncologist, with Genesis Care Newcastle

Founder and President, Middle East Forum, publisher Middle East Quarterly Journal, (US)

Professor of Economics, University of Melbourne

Senior Research Fellow and Director, Culture, Prosperity & Civil Society Program, CIS

Internationally acclaimed novelist and journalist, (US)

Head of Economic Research, Reserve Bank of Australia

Executive Director, CIS

Professor of Economics at Stanford University; Senior Fellow in Economics at the Hoover Institution and Chair of the Working Group on Economic Policy, (US)

UQ-CSIRO Chair in Personalised Nanodiagnostics, Professorial Research Fellow, School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences, University of Queensland

Diplomat, American Board of Pathology

Minister for Population, Cities and Urban Infrastructure

Liberal Party Member for Berowra

Australia’s Ambassador to China from 2007 to 2011, Chairman & CEO of Geoff Raby and Associates Ltd based in Beijing

Director of China and Free Societies program, CIS

Senior Research Scholar, Marron Institute of Urban Management, New York University, (US)