Lucy Gichuhi
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Senator Lucy Gichuhi |
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Lucy Gichuhi (bottom left) and her family
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| Senator for South Australia | |
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Assumed office 19 April 2017 |
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| Personal details | |
| Born |
23 September 1962 Hiriga, Nyeri County, Kenya |
| Citizenship | Australian |
| Political party | Independent |
| Other political affiliations |
Family First (until 3 May 2017) |
| Spouse(s) | William |
| Children | 3 |
| Alma mater | University of Nairobi, University of South Australia |
| Profession | Accountant, lawyer |
| Religion | Christianity |
| Website | http://lucygichuhi.com |
Lucy Gichuhi (English: /ˈluːsi giˈtʃuːi/) (born 23 September 1962) is an Australian politician who is a Senator for South Australia, sitting as an independent. She was declared to have been elected at the 2016 election for the Family First Party following a special recount on 13 April 2017 ordered by the High Court of Australia, sitting as the Court of Disputed Returns, following its decision that Bob Day had not been eligible to stand for election.
Gichuhi grew up in the village of Hiriga in the Nyeri County in rural Kenya. Between school, she worked to gather food from the garden or help milk the family's cows.
Gichuhi is the first of her father Justus Weru Munyiri's ten children. Her father and brother still live in her ancestral home in Hiriga village in Mathira East sub-county Nyeri.
She moved to Nairobi where she trained as an accountant at the University of Nairobi. She was an accountant with various auditing firms before moving to South Australia in 1999 with her husband William and three children. She worked at Ernst and Young and the South Australian Auditor-General's department developing programs for migrants and international students. She completed a Bachelor of Law from the University of South Australia in 2015. Prior to her appointment to the Senate, she was volunteering as a lawyer for the Women's Legal Service.
Bob Day had been the first-ranked candidate on the Family First Party ticket at the election on 2 July 2016, with Gichuhi the second and only other (a ticket—with its advantage of attracting votes above the line, which is how most electors vote—requires a minimum of two candidates). The party received 24,817 votes above the line; below the line, Day received 5,495 votes and Gichuhi 152. Following Day's disqualification, at the direction of the High Court the Australian Electoral Commission performed a special recount, in which Day was excluded and all of the party's votes above the line were distributed to to Gichuhi with the result that she was deemed to have been elected. Gichuhi was sworn in as a Senator when the Parliament next met, on 9 May 2017. Her election and her Senatorial term are dated from the High Court's decision on 19 April 2017.
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