Carina Garland

She has served as a Labor MP for Chisholm since the 2022 Australian federal election.

Carina Garland MP
Garland at a 2022 election forum
Member of the Australian Parliament for Chisholm
Incumbent
Assumed office 21 May 2022
Preceded by	Gladys Liu
Personal details
Political party	Labor

Garland was born in Traralgon, Victoria. Her father was a general practitioner and ran a practice in Melbourne's south-east with her mother, a nurse. Her maternal grandparents immigrated to Australia from Italy in the 1950s. Her grandfather was a maths teacher at Emmaus College in Burwood.

Garland grew up in Clayton. She attended Sacré Cœur School in Glen Iris, where she was a School Prefect. She later enrolled in an Arts/Law degree at Monash University, being awarded first class honours in English Literature. She received a scholarship to complete a PhD in the humanities at the University of Sydney.

Garland worked as an academic at the University of Sydney.^[when?] After completing her PhD in the humanities, Garland worked as a parliamentary staffer for Simon Crean. "Simon was the first person I voted for in any election and my first boss in politics," she said in 2023. She described him as a "generous boss" who gave her support and advice during her election campaign in 2022.

From 2016 to 2018, Garland was Senior Vice-President of the Australian Labor Party (Vic).

Garland served as the Assistant Secretary for the Victorian Trades Hall Council from 2018 - 2021. Her responsibilities included the Young Workers Centre and the Migrant Workers Centre. In 2019 she was a witness in the Victorian Government's Legislative Assembly Economy and Infrastructure Committee Inquiry into sustainable employment for disadvantaged jobseekers, where she advocated for marginalised and migrant workers.

Garland was preselected to stand in Chisholm for Labor at the 2022 federal election in July 2021, and won the seat with an 8.1-point swing in her direction, defeating Liberal incumbent Gladys Liu. During the 2022 election campaign, Garland and her supported knocked on 60,000 doors in Chisholm, phoned 72,000 people and had more than 25,000 conversations with voters in the electorate. Garland was endorsed by Kevin Rudd. Anthony Albanese described her as "a local champion who understands Chisholm and its needs".

In the Labor caucus, Garland is a member of the Labor Left faction.

Former Chisholm MP, Anna Burke, is a friend and mentor to Garland, and Garland has said that Burke showed her "what it means to be a really hard-working, active local member of parliament."

In Parliament, Garland advocates for education, healthcare, climate change, workers rights, small business, local manufacturing and multiculturalism. In April 2023 she signed a letter calling for a substantial increase to JobSeeker. She is an advocate for life long learning and building a thriving higher education system in Australia.

Garland's electorate office is in Mount Waverley.

Garland lives in Clayton.

Garland is a descendant of Mary and Edith Garland, who signed the 1891 petition to grant Victorian women the right to vote.

Garland has Italian heritage, and her family credits the Federal Labor Government for transforming their lives.