About Matt

Senator Matt O’Sullivan was sworn in as a Senator for Western Australia in 2019.  

WA has been home to six generations of Matt’s family, and he and his wife are proud to be raising their two children south of Perth. 

Matt has worked right across Western Australia. He began his career as a tradesman, completing an electronics and communications apprenticeship. While doing this, he volunteered with a youth service connected to his church. The community needs that he was exposed to as a volunteer inspired him to pursue a career change as a youth worker. Over the following eight years, he worked extensively with at-risk youth and their families. 

These experiences informed his deep conviction that strong families, good government policy and meaningful employment have a critical role to play in building successful communities. 

In 2008, Matt joined Andrew and Nicola Forrest’s Minderoo Foundation. There he was given the responsibility of leading Generation One – a nation-building project that has seen tens of thousands of Indigenous people obtain work. Matt has been instrumental in leading reform across employment and social policy areas in Australia – before entering Parliament, and now as a Senator. 

As a member of the Australian Parliament, Matt is a Deputy Opposition Whip in the Senate, Chair of the Education and Employment References Committee and Deputy Chair of the Education and Employment Legislation Committee. 

Matt is passionate about economic development and opportunity, employment services reform and early childhood education. He believes in being a voice for Western Australians in Canberra, not a voice for Canberra in Western Australia. Matt will listen and learn from the community in which he lives and raises his family and will deliver the measurable social and economic outcomes that Western Australians deserve.