62 Facts About Monique Ryan

Monique Marie Ryan was born on 20 January 1967 and is an Australian politician and former paediatric neurologist.

Monique Ryan is currently the independent Member of Parliament for the Division of Kooyong, Victoria, having won the seat at the 2022 federal election.

Monique Ryan became director of neurology at Melbourne's Royal Children's Hospital in 2014.

Monique Ryan has been classified by the media as being a Teal independent.

Monique Ryan's campaign featured significant community involvement, with more than 1,500 volunteers canvassing the electorate and 2,000 individual donors.

Since entering parliament, Monique Ryan has advocated for a range of issues, and proposed a private member's bill to improve integrity in government.

Monique Ryan has been particularly vocal on issues of climate change, health, and anti-corruption policy.

Monique Ryan has been prominent in calling for reforms in the HECS system, and created a petition on the issue that gained more than 260,000 signatures.

Monique Ryan's proposed changes were adopted by the Albanese government in May 2024.

Monique Marie Ryan was born in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, on 20 January 1967.

Monique Ryan has a twin sister and is one of seven children born to Maurice and Marguerite Ryan.

Monique Ryan's father was a telecommunications executive and her mother was a charity worker who served as CEO of the Christian Brothers Foundation, and founded Women for Women in Africa, a charity supporting the Kibera slum in Kenya.

Monique Ryan grew up in the Melbourne suburbs Caulfield North, Toorak and Hawthorn.

Monique Ryan attended Loreto Mandeville Hall, Toorak, graduating as dux in 1984.

Monique Ryan studied medicine at the University of Melbourne and graduated in 1991.

Monique Ryan then underwent paediatric training in Sydney and completed a neurology residency at the Children's Hospital Boston in Massachusetts, United States, and completed a neurophysiology fellowship at the Lahey Clinic in the same US state.

Monique Ryan's publications have over 10,000 citations and she has an H-index of 50, which is a measure of the impact of her research.

Monique Ryan was joint editor of the textbook Neuromuscular Disorders of Infancy, Childhood, and Adolescence: A clinician's approach.

Monique Ryan was awarded prizes for her research in neurology by the US Child Neurology Society in 2000, the American Academy of Neurology in 2002, and the XIth International Congress on Neuromuscular Disorders in 2006.

In 2019, Monique Ryan was awarded an Australian Financial Review 100 Women of Influence Innovation Award for her impact in medical research.

In 2019 and 2023, Monique Ryan was called as an expert witness to inquiries into the deaths of Kathleen Folbigg's children, where Monique Ryan testified neurogenetic disorders may have been the cause of the death of Folbigg's son Patrick.

Monique Ryan had no previous political experience in university, community or local council politics, and stated she was motivated to stand for election due to "a rising sense of desperation" around climate policy, as well as the government's attitude towards women.

On 12 December 2021, Monique Ryan launched her election campaign for Kooyong at Hawthorn Arts Centre.

Monique Ryan was one of a number of centrist Teal independents who campaigned to unseat moderate Liberal Party MPs on the basis of a lack of action on climate change among other policies.

Monique Ryan had been a member of the Australian Labor Party between 2007 and 2010, which led Frydenberg to characterise her as a "fake independent".

Monique Ryan has stated she never attended any party meetings and quit Labor in 2010 due to dissatisfaction with their policies regarding climate change.

Monique Ryan primarily campaigned on policies relating to climate change and anti-corruption.

Volunteers from Monique Ryan's campaign canvassed every household in the electorate.

The volunteer manager of Monique Ryan's campaign was Rob Baillieu, son of former Premier of Victoria Ted Baillieu.

Between January and March 2022, Monique Ryan's campaign spent $86,700 on advertisements on Facebook.

In total, Monique Ryan's campaign spent $2.12 million and Frydenberg's spent around $2 million.

At a function on 2 May 2022, Frydenberg stated Monique Ryan's mother-in-law had approached him in the street and said she would vote for him.

Monique Ryan initially stated the anecdote was untrue but later stated it was true and that drawing family members into the campaign was inappropriate.

Monique Ryan crowdfunded to fund the court case and raised more than $73,000 by 9:30pm that day.

At 10:30pm, Monique Ryan delivered a speech to her supporters, saying: "Kooyong, our climate has changed".

Monique Ryan said her first priority would be action on climate change.

Monique Ryan's election made her the 1230th member elected to the House of Representatives, the eighth member representing Kooyong, and the first woman to represent Kooyong.

Monique Ryan gave her first speech to Parliament on 28 July 2022.

Rugg stated she had been forced to work excessive hours and that Monique Ryan had justified this by saying she wished to be prime minister one day.

Monique Ryan publicly disagreed with these statements and stated she was joking about becoming prime minister.

Legal academics anticipated the case as potentially of precedent value for Australian employment law; Monique Ryan argued her court case with Sally Rugg demonstrated the crossbench required more staff.

In June 2023, Monique Ryan stated her opposition to fracking projects in the Northern Territory and endorsed a letter written by paediatricians that opposed fracking in the Beetaloo Basin.

Since August 2022, Monique Ryan has been a member of two parliamentary committees; the House of Representatives standing committee on Health, Aged Care and Sport, and the joint standing committee on the National Disability Insurance Scheme.

Monique Ryan has called for the release of Julian Assange, an Australian citizen who was being held in HM Prison Belmarsh in London, UK, while appealing a US extradition order to face charges there.

In September 2023, Monique Ryan travelled to Washington, DC, as part of a cross-party parliamentary delegation, which included Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce, to lobby US politicians for their government to cease its campaign to extradite Assange.

Monique Ryan stated cancelling the tax cuts would allow for the doubling of funding for rent assistance.

In October 2023, Monique Ryan stated her opposition to an electric vehicle tax, such as the one that had been introduced in Victoria, as a distance-based charge to recoup lost government revenue from petrol excise.

Monique Ryan said there should fair application of road-use charges to all vehicles.

Monique Ryan supported the unsuccessful campaign to create an Indigenous Voice to Parliament, which was voted upon in the October 2023 referendum, and stated she was proud a majority of Kooyong residents voted Yes.

On 13 October 2023, following Palestinian terrorist group Hamas's attack against Israel, Monique Ryan attended a pro-Israel rally in Caulfield, Melbourne.

In November 2023, Monique Ryan called for a "mandatory compensation scheme" for passengers whose flights are cancelled without warning, and stated Australian airlines were behaving as a "mafia of the skies".

In November 2023, to address political lobbying in Australia, Monique Ryan introduced a private member's bill entitled Lobbying Bill 2023 to the House, and stated the bill came from a need to "clean up politics", saying: "our current lobbying rules are toothless and ineffective".

Monique Ryan has been a prominent advocate for changes to the HECS-HELP scheme, the loan program for Australian higher education students.

Monique Ryan launched a petition on 14 March 2024, arguing for indexation of HECS to be changed to match the lower of the Consumer Price Index or the Wage Price Index.

Monique Ryan stated that "The government got more money last year from our HECS debts than it did from its main fossil fuel tax".

Monique Ryan's statements have been supported by fellow teal independents Zoe Daniel, Zali Steggall and Kylea Tink.

In November 2024, Monique Ryan stated her support for lowering the voting age to 16.

In November 2024, Monique Ryan co-authored a statement with other teal independents advocating for the federal government and opposition to both release 2035 emissions reduction targets prior to the 2025 Australian federal election.

In December 2024, Monique Ryan advocated for gambling company Sportsbet to remove advertising from the social media platform Snapchat after it was revealed that the advertising could be viewed by children under the age of 18.

Monique Ryan is standing for re-election at the 2025 Australian federal election.

In February 2025, Monique Ryan stated that in the event of a hung parliament at the federal election, her first priority would be reforming the Petroleum Resources Rent Tax to increase taxation revenue from oil and gas companies.

Monique Ryan is a member of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians.