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Dean Smith has been a Liberal Senator for Western Australia since May 2012.

In June 2022, he was appointed to the Coalition’s Shadow Economics Team as Shadow Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury.

Dean was previously a member of the Coalition Government’s Senate Leadership Team – having been elected Chief Government Whip in the Senate by his Liberal Senate colleagues in January 2019.

The son of a WA Policeman, Dean grew up in Port Hedland and Perth’s northern suburbs.

He maintains close ties to both and is a champion for issues important to those communities – and to all regional Western Australia.

As a Liberal Senator for WA, Dean has been one of the State’s strongest voices in Canberra.

He first spoke on GST reform in the Senate in 2012 and advocated relentlessly for the fairer GST deal struck in 2018, which delivers Western Australia a GST floor of 75 cents in 2024/2025.

Early in his Parliamentary career, Dean successfully fought to protect the Federation and Western Australian interests by co-ordinating other Liberal Senators to oppose the Rudd and Gillard Governments’ plan to recognise local government in the Australian Constitution.

Dean also backed Western Australian farming communities by opposing attempts to re-regulate Australia’s wheat exports and our premium wine producers by progressing reform of the wine equalisation tax, supporting tourism and jobs.

He is the architect of the Marriage Amendment (Definition and Religious Freedoms) Bill 2017 that brought marriage equality to Australia – legislation that delivers marriage equality while also protecting religious views on marriage.

Dean was awarded the McKinnon Prize in Political Leadership in 2018 by a panel of eminent Australians, including John Howard and Julia Gillard.

Prior to entering the Senate, he held senior executive roles at Insurance Australia Group and SingTel Optus.

Dean brings to his Senate role extensive policy experience, having worked as Policy Adviser to both Western Australian Premier Richard Court and Prime Minister John Howard.

His Parliamentary Committee obligations include Chair of the Senate Scrutiny of Bills Committee and Deputy Chair of the Joint Standing Committee on the Implementation of the National Redress Scheme.

Dean was previously Chair of the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Public Accounts and Audit and the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights, among others.

He was appointed to the National Archives of Australia Advisory Council in July 2022.

About Dean Smith

Dean Anthony Smith is a prominent Australian politician and a member of the Liberal Party of Australia. He was born on 15 May 1969 in Mirrabooka, Western Australia. Smith attended Mirrabooka Primary School and Mirrabooka Senior High School before going on to graduate with honors in political science from the University of Western Australia.

From a young age, Smith showed an interest in politics and joined the Liberal Party at the age of 17. He started his political career as a policy adviser to the Premier of Western Australia, Richard Court. Later, he became a senior adviser to the then-Prime Minister of Australia, John Howard during the Coalition’s 1998 federal election campaign.

In 2010, Smith founded Smith & Duda Consulting, a political lobbying firm, and also served as the treasurer of the Liberal Party state branch in Western Australia. Smith’s successful career in politics led to his appointment to the Australian Senate on 2 May 2012 by a joint sitting of the Parliament of Western Australia, to fill a casual vacancy caused by the death of Senator Judith Adams.

As a Senator, Smith has been a vocal advocate for LGBTQ+ rights and was the first openly-LGBTI member of the Parliament of Australia from the Liberal Party. He has been a supporter of same-sex marriage in Australia since the 2014 Sydney hostage crisis. Prior to that, he opposed same-sex marriage and voted against it. In 2017, Smith introduced the Marriage Amendment (Definition and Religious Freedoms) Bill to the Senate, which passed on 29 November 2017.

Smith’s political career has seen him serve as the Chief Government Whip in the Senate since 21 January 2019. He has also served on the Inquiry into the destruction of 46,000-year-old caves at the Juukan Gorge in the Pilbara region of Western Australia, which delivered its interim report in December 2020.

Outside of politics, Smith is an active member of several political and community organizations, including Australians for Constitutional Monarchy and the Australian National Flag Association. He is an Anglican and comes from a humble background, with his father working as a policeman and his mother as a housewife. He was the first person in his family to attend university.

Dean Anthony Smith’s career in politics has been marked by his commitment to serving the people of Australia and his advocacy for LGBTQ+ rights. He continues to be a prominent figure in Australian politics and a leading voice in the Liberal Party.