Lucy Muringo Gichuhi is an Australian politician who served as a Senator for South Australia from 2017 to 2019.
21 Facts About Lucy Gichuhi
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Lucy Gichuhi is a social conservative who has been vocally opposed to the legalization of same-sex marriage.
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Lucy Gichuhi originally sat in the Senate as an independent, after refusing to join the Family First Party in merging into the Australian Conservatives.
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Lucy Gichuhi joined the Liberal Party in February 2018, but failed to win re-election at the 2019 federal election.
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Lucy Gichuhi grew up in the rural village of Hiriga, Nyeri County, Kenya Colony.
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Lucy Gichuhi is the first of her father Justus Weru Munyiri's ten children.
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Lucy Gichuhi moved to Nairobi where she trained as an accountant at the University of Nairobi.
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Lucy Gichuhi was an accountant with various auditing firms before moving to South Australia in 1999 with her husband William and three children.
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Lucy Gichuhi worked at Ernst and Young and the South Australian Auditor-General's department developing programs for migrants and international students.
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Lucy Gichuhi completed a Bachelor of Law from the University of South Australia in 2015.
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Lucy Gichuhi was elected to serve the balance of Day's term, which was set at three years rather than the usual six owing to the 2016 election being a double dissolution; as a result, her term was due to end on 30 June 2019.
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Senator Lucy Gichuhi was born in Kenya and is the first person of Black African descent to be elected to the Australian Parliament.
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Lucy Gichuhi told the leaders of both parties that she had no intention of joining the Conservatives, and would sit as an Independent when Family First was disbanded.
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On 2 February 2018, Lucy Gichuhi joined the Liberals, with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull personally welcoming her to the party in a video posted to his Twitter account.
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Lucy Gichuhi said that she realised "how Liberal I am at the core" when she gave her maiden speech a year earlier.
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Lucy Gichuhi had already been voting with the Coalition fairly often since taking her Senate seat.
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In July 2018, Lucy Gichuhi was demoted to an unwinnable fourth position on the Liberal Party's South Australian Senate ticket for the next federal election.
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At the 2019 election, Lucy Gichuhi only garnered 2,500 votes, and the Liberal vote was nowhere near enough for her to retain her seat.
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Lucy Gichuhi said her Christian faith was the backbone of her political beliefs, but strongly supports freedom of religion.
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On 29 November 2017 when the bill was voted in the Senate, Lucy Gichuhi was one of twelve senators who voted against it.
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In January 2018, Lucy Gichuhi visited Kenya and was the guest on television talk show Jeff Koinange Live hosted by Jeff Koinange on Citizen TV.