Thursday, 11 June, 2009 - 00:00
Lobbyists change amid shifting political landscape
THE world of lobbying was turned upside down with the ousting of Alan Carpenter's Labor state government in September last year.
Dean Smith
Assistant Shadow Minister for Competition, Charities & Treasury / Parliament of Australia
Most Notable Role
Dean Smith is an Australian politician, a member of the Liberal Party, and the Senator for Western Australia since 2012.
Mr Smith joined the Liberal Party at the age of 17, and later worked as a policy advisor to the Premier of Western Australia Richard Court. In 1998, he was a senior advisor to Prime Minister John Howard during the Coalition's 1998 federal election campaign. In 2010 he founded Smith & Duda Consulting, a political lobbying firm, and also served as treasurer of the Liberal Party state branch in Western Australia. Mr Smith was appointed to the Senate in 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.
Mr Smith was the first openly-LGBTI member of the Parliament of Australia from the Liberal Party, and has supported same-sex marriage in Australia since the 2014 Sydney hostage crisis. Prior to that, he opposed same-sex marriage and voted against it. He introduced the Marriage Amendment (Definition and Religious Freedoms) Bill 2017 to the Senate in November which passed the Senate on 29 November 2017.
Mr Smith is a member of several political and community organisations, including Australians for Constitutional Monarchy and the Australian National Flag Association.
In June 2022, following the Liberal Party's defeat at the federal election, Mr Smith became the Assistant Shadow Minister for Competition, Charities & Treasury in the Dutton shadow ministry.
