Rick Wilson

Biography

Richard James Wilson is an Australian politician from the Liberal Party who has been a member of the House of Representatives since the 2013 federal election. He represents the Western Australian seat of O’Connor. Wilson was born on January 2, 1966, in Katanning, Western Australia, and is the youngest of six children. He was involved in running the family farm from a young age after his father passed away when he was 14. He later took over the family farm in partnership with his brother Allan.

Wilson holds a Bachelor of Business in Agriculture from Curtin University. Before entering politics, Wilson held several offices in the Pastoralists and Graziers Association of Western Australia (PGA). He was the vice-chairman (2000-2008) and chairman (2008-2011) of the Western Graingrowers Committee, where he played a significant role in campaigning to deregulate the Australian wheat industry and end the monopoly of the Australian Wheat Board. He was also against the monopoly granted to CBH Group on grain freight.

In September 2019, Wilson was nominated to the speaker’s panel and has since served on several committees. These include his role as chair of the House Standing Committee on Agriculture and Water Resources since 2016, and as chair of the Joint Statutory Committee on Public Works from 2020.

Wilson is known to be a member of the National Right faction of the Liberal Party. In his maiden speech, Wilson described himself as “a social conservative and an economic liberal”. He is against same-sex marriage, and despite his electorate voting “Yes” in the Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey, he abstained from the vote on what later became the Marriage Amendment (Definition and Religious Freedoms) Act 2017.

Wilson is married to Tanya, and together they have four children. In 2015, the family relocated from Katanning to Albany.