Melissa Price

Biography

Melissa Lee Price is an Australian politician who has served in various ministerial roles in the Australian federal government. Born in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia in 1963, Price is the youngest of four children born to Lyn and Ray Dellar. Her grandfather and uncle were both representatives of the Australian Labor Party in the Western Australian Legislative Council, while her father campaigned for the same party.

Price left school at the age of 15 and worked in various industries such as hospitality, insurance, fast food, grains, and mining. Later, she attended university as a mature-age student and graduated with a Bachelor of Laws from London South Bank University and a graduate diploma in law from the University of Western Australia.

Price worked as a solicitor in private practice from 1997 to 2002. She then worked at the CBH Group, a grain cooperative, as a general counsel and business development manager until 2008. Later, she worked at Crosslands Resources, an iron ore mining company, as a vice-president of legal and business development until 2012. Additionally, she served as a non-executive director of the Cancer Council of Western Australia and the BrightSpark Foundation until 2016.

Price first entered politics when she contested the state seat of Kalgoorlie at the March 2013 state election, but she was unsuccessful. In July 2013, she won Liberal preselection for the federal seat of Durack after the incumbent MP Barry Haase retired. She won the seat for the Liberals at the September 2013 federal election, and was re-elected at the 2016 federal election despite being challenged for Liberal preselection.

Price served on the speaker’s panel from 2015 to 2016 and was the chair of the House of Representatives standing committee on indigenous affairs from 2016 to 2017. In December 2017, she was appointed Assistant Minister for the Environment in the Turnbull government, under environment minister Josh Frydenberg. Following the 2018 Liberal leadership spills, Price was appointed Minister for the Environment in the Morrison government. In April 2019, she gave ministerial approval to the Adani Group’s controversial Carmichael coal mine in Queensland and later to the Yeelirrie uranium mine in Western Australia.

After the Coalition’s re-election at the 2019 federal election, Price was removed from cabinet but remained in the outer ministry as Minister for Defence Industry. In March 2021, she was reappointed to cabinet as Minister for Science and Technology, with Prime Minister Scott Morrison seeking to increase the proportion of women in the wake of sexual misconduct allegations within the government. Her term as a minister ended in 2022.