Graham Perrett

Biography

Graham Douglas Perrett is an Australian politician and member of the House of Representatives for the Queensland seat of Moreton since 2007, representing the Australian Labor Party (ALP). Before entering parliament, Perrett worked as a schoolteacher, solicitor, and political staffer.

Born in St George, Queensland in 1966, Perrett was the seventh child in a family of ten children. He received a diploma of teaching in 1985 and taught in schools on the Darling Downs and Far North Queensland for three years, then in Brisbane for another eight years. Perrett completed a BA (Hons) through the University of Queensland in 1993, and later an LL.B. from Queensland University of Technology in 1999. He worked as a solicitor for the Supreme Court of Queensland from 1999 to 2005 before joining the Queensland Independent Education Union as an organiser and later became a senior policy adviser to the Premier of Queensland and the Minister for Health.

Perrett ran unsuccessfully for the federal seat of Moreton in 2004 but won the seat in the 2007 election with a 7.6-point swing, ending Gary Hardgrave’s 11-year term in office. Perrett campaigned primarily on issues relating to health and education and was appointed as a Government Whip in May 2013 before being appointed as a shadow parliamentary secretary in Bill Shorten’s shadow ministry in May 2014.

Aside from his political career, Perrett published his first novel, The Twelfth Fish, in October 2008, and a sequel, The Big Fig, in September 2013. He is also a keen fan of music and literature and enjoys writing and bushwalking. Perrett lives in Moorooka, Queensland with his wife Lea and has two sons.