The granddaughter of an Indo-Fijian member of the Parliament of Fiji, Singh was Australia's first female federal parliamentarian of Indian descent.

[2] After leaving politics she worked as Head of Government Advocacy for Walk Free, an international human rights organisation and initiative of the Minderoo Foundation.

[3] She is currently the Director and CEO of the Australia India Institute,[4] the University of Melbourne's centre dedicated to promoting support for and understanding of the bilateral relationship.

Her uncle, Raman Pratap Singh, was a Fijian politician and a past President of the National Federation Party and was a Member of Parliament from 1994 to 1999.

Singh then became the Director of the Tasmanian Working Women's Centre, where she campaigned for paid parental leave and equal pay.

[19] As minister, Singh introduced legislative reforms in workers compensation, corrections, climate change and asbestos management.

On 24 June 2014, the federal Labor leader, Bill Shorten, promoted her to the position of shadow parliamentary secretary for the Environment, Climate Change and Water.

[26] Singh's parliamentary career and advocacy focused on the promotion and protection of human rights, foreign affairs, trade and international development, multiculturalism and refugees, the environment and climate change, governance and access to justice.

As Co-chair of the Parliamentary Group on HIV, Singh represented the Australian parliament at the 22nd International AIDS conference and paid tribute to the late Professor David Cooper AC.

She broke with the Labor Party's official position to call for an end to indefinite offshore detention on the ABC TV Q&A program.

She was subsequently invited by Harvard to contribute a chapter on the challenges of upholding children's rights in immigration policy in a Research Handbook on Child Migration.