Tonia Shand

Tonia Louise Shand (6 November 1939 – 15 July 2020) was an Australian diplomat and public servant, who served as Australia's first woman High Commissioner to Sri Lanka from 1988 to 1991.

Shand graduated from the University of Melbourne with a BA, majoring in German and political science.

In 1973 she, a married woman with a child, was given permission to join the staff of the High Commission in Delhi, India from 1973 to 1975. Her next overseas posting was as Deputy High Commissioner in Kuala Lumpur from 1979 to 1982. In 1985, while Assistant Secretary of the Peace and Disarmament Branch of the Department of Foreign Affairs, she was appointed by Bill Hayden to the Consultative Committee on Peace and Disarmament, a 19-member committee convened to prepare for the International Year of Peace in 1986.

In 1988, three years after the death of her daughter, she was posted by Michael Duffy to Sri Lanka as High Commissioner.

Shand was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in the 1990 Queen's Birthday Honours. In 2005, she was interviewed by Michael Wilson for the National Library of Australia's Australian diplomats 1950–2000 collection.

She died in Canberra on 15 July 2020. Her husband had predeceased her in 2014.