Representative Lisa Chesters Contact information

Lisa Marie Chesters is an Australian politician and member of the Australian Labor Party (ALP). She was born on 11 February 1980 in Wentworthville, New South Wales. Her parents owned a small business, and her mother Jenny Chesters went on to complete a PhD and become an academic.

Chesters obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Queensland. During her time there, she was involved in student politics and held positions such as secretary of the University of Queensland Union and women’s officer of the National Union of Students. After university, she worked as an organiser for United Voice for a decade.

Chesters was active in the Victorian Branch of the Australian Labor Party and served on the administrative committee, as a delegate to state and national conference, and as president of the women’s affairs policy committee before she entered parliament.

Chesters was elected to the House of Representatives for the Division of Bendigo at the 2013 federal election, succeeding Steve Gibbons. She is the first woman to represent the Division of Bendigo, which has existed since Federation in 1901. Chesters has been re-elected in the subsequent federal elections held in 2016, 2019, and 2022.

After the 2016 election, Chesters was appointed to the shadow ministry of Bill Shorten as a shadow assistant minister, with the portfolios of “workplace relations” and “rural and regional Australia”. However, she did not retain her position when Anthony Albanese became party leader after the 2019 election.

In her personal life, Chesters is in a long-term relationship with Matt Emond. They have two children, one born in 2019 and the other in 2021. In 2018, Chesters was diagnosed with conjunctival melanoma, a rare form of eye cancer. She underwent surgical treatment and radiotherapy for the condition.