1. Melissa Parke was born on 11 August 1966 and is a former Australian Labor Party politician and UN human rights lawyer, who served as Member for the federal electoral Division of Fremantle in the Australian House of Representatives from 2007 to 2016.
In 2013 Parke was appointed by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd as Minister for International Development and served in that capacity until Labor lost government later that year.
Melissa Parke worked as a law lecturer at Murdoch University, the principal solicitor at the Bunbury Community Legal Centre, and in private legal practice in Sydney and Western Australia.
Melissa Parke retired from politics at the 2016 federal election.
In September 2017 Melissa Parke was appointed as an Ambassador for the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.
Melissa Parke was appointed executive director of ICAN in 2023.
In December 2017, and again in 2018,2019 and 2020, Melissa Parke was appointed by the UN Human Rights Commissioner to the "Group of Eminent Experts on Yemen", to investigate human rights violations in Yemen.
Melissa Parke grew up in the south-west of Western Australia on her parents' apple farm in Donnybrook.
Melissa Parke attended public schools in Donnybrook and Bunbury and completed a Bachelor of Business at Curtin University in 1989.
Melissa Parke began her employment as an international lawyer with UNMIK, the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Kosovo from 1999 to 2002 and subsequently worked in Gaza with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East from 2002 to 2004.
In 2004 Melissa Parke became a legal adviser in the Office of the Under-Secretary-General for Management in the UN headquarters, New York.
In 2005 and 2006, Melissa Parke was seconded from the Department of Management to establish the new UN Ethics Office, laying the foundations for a permanent unit within the UN that would eventually serve 29,000 personnel worldwide in relation to issues of ethics, transparency and good governance.
From mid-2006 to early 2007, Melissa Parke worked as the deputy chief of staff and legal adviser in the UN International Independent Investigation Commission in Beirut, Lebanon, investigating the assassination of the former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri and other terrorist attacks in Lebanon.
Melissa Parke returned to her post in New York in early 2007 and left the United Nations in June of that year to return to Fremantle, Australia to stand for federal parliament.
Melissa Parke was first elected as the Member for the Division of Fremantle in the 2007 Australian federal election.
Melissa Parke was re-elected in the 2010 Australian federal election and again in the 2013 Australian federal election.
In June 2011 Melissa Parke publicly raised concerns about the government's proposal to send asylum-seeker children to Malaysia and in July 2011 Melissa Parke was one of nine backbenchers to raise concerns about the government's decision to resume the live export of cattle to Indonesia after the ABC Four Corners program exposed cruel and inhumane treatment of Australian cattle in Indonesian abattoirs.
In February 2013 Melissa Parke was promoted to Parliamentary Secretary for Mental Health, Homelessness and Social Housing.
Melissa Parke has previously sat on the Joint Standing Committee for Foreign Affairs, Defence, and Trade, the Joint Standing Committee for Treaties, and the Joint Statutory Committee: Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity.
In 2013 Melissa Parke was a joint recipient of the Alan Missen award for integrity, awarded by the Accountability Round Table once every three years.
On 22 January 2016, Melissa Parke announced her retirement at the next federal election, to spend more time with her family, following her marriage to Perth businessman and patron of the arts, Warwick Hemsley.
Melissa Parke withdrew her candidacy for the seat following negative media coverage after she was reported to have told a meeting that Israel's treatment of Palestinians was "worse than the South African system of apartheid".
Melissa Parke said her views regarding Palestine-Israel were well known but that she did not want them to be a "distraction from electing a Labor government which will take urgent and strong action on climate change".
In September 2017 Melissa Parke was appointed as an Ambassador for ICAN.
In December 2017, and again in 2018 and 2019, Melissa Parke was appointed by the UN Human Rights Commissioner to the "Group of Eminent Experts on Yemen", to investigate human rights violations in Yemen.
In 2019, Melissa Parke was elected to the Governing Body of development organisation BRAC, the world's largest NGO.
In January 2020, Melissa Parke sued Liberal MP Dave Sharma for defamation over a tweet in which he accused her of antisemitism and "trafficking in conspiracy theories".
On 26 March 2020, the Herald Sun printed an apology to Melissa Parke and published her op-ed entitled Criticism Not Same As Racism.
In October 2020, the Federal Court ruled that Melissa Parke was entitled to take up an earlier settlement offer from David Sharma despite initially rejecting it, and the case was consequently dismissed.
Melissa Parke was awarded the Jerusalem Peace Prize by the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network in 2022, in recognition of her tireless advocacy for Palestinian human rights and justice.