Matthew Anthony O'Sullivan (born 11 December 1978) is an Australian politician. He has been a

Liberal Party of Australia The Liberal Party of Australia is a centre-right political party in Australia, one of the two major parties in Australian politics, along with the centre-left Australian Labor Party. It was founded in 1944 as the successor to the United Au ...

member of the

Australian Senate The Senate is the upper house of the Bicameralism, bicameral Parliament of Australia, the lower house being the House of Representatives (Australia), House of Representatives. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Chapter ...

since 2019.

Early life

O'Sullivan was born on 11 December 1978 in

Mount Lawley, Western Australia Mount Lawley is an inner northern suburb of Perth, Western Australia. The suburb is bounded by the Swan River to the east, Vincent, Harold and Pakenham Streets to the south, Central Avenue and Alexander Drive to the north, and Norfolk Street t ...

. He completed a

TAFE Technical and further education or simply TAFE (), is the common name in English-speaking countries in Oceania for vocational education, as a subset of tertiary education. TAFE institutions provide a wide range of predominantly vocational cours ...

certificate in electronics and communications at Midland and subsequently worked as an electronic technician with

fleet management Fleet management is the management of: * Commercial motor vehicles such as cars, vans, trucks, specialist vehicles (such as mobile construction machinery), forklifts, and trailers * Private vehicles used for work purposes (the 'grey fleet') * Avi ...

provider TerraVision from 1996 to 1999. In his maiden speech to parliament he stated that he had installed the passenger information system for the

Perth Central Area Transit The Perth Central Area Transit (Perth CAT) system, or simply CAT, consists of five bus routes in the centre of Perth, one bus route in Fremantle, and three bus routes in Joondalup. Similar services exist in Rockingham (the City Centre Transit ...

(CAT) bus network. O'Sullivan worked as a Christian youth leader from 2000 to 2007, initially with the Perth Christian Life Centre and then with Garden City Christian Church. He was later associated with the evangelical Nations Church. O'Sullivan began working for mining billionaire

Andrew Forrest John Andrew Henry Forrest (born 18 November 1961), nicknamed Twiggy, is an Australian businessman. He is best known as the former CEO (and current non-executive chairman) of Fortescue Metals Group (FMG), and has other interests in the mining i ...

's Minderoo Foundation in 2008, and at the time of his election was chief operating officer of Forrest's indigenous youth employment scheme GenerationOne.

Politics

O'Sullivan was the Liberal Party's candidate in

Burt Burt is a given name and also a shortened form of other names, such as Burton and Herbert, or a place name. Burt may refer to: People *Burt Alvord (1866–after 1910), American Old West lawman and outlaw *Burt Bacharach (born 1928), American com ...

at the 2016 federal election, at which point he was living in

Aubin Grove Aubin may refer to: * Aubin (name), people with the given name or surname Aubin * Aubin, Aveyron, France, a commune * Aubin, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, France, a commune * Aubin Codex, a textual and pictorial history of the Aztecs See also * Aubi ...

. He won preselection after the original ballot was overturned by the party's state council. He was president of the party's Jandakot branch from 2017 to 2019. O'Sullivan was elected to the Senate at the 2019 federal election from the marginal third position on the Liberal ticket, after winning a close and contentious Liberal preselection contest. In his first speech to parliament in July 2019, he argued for the extension of the Forrest-backed

Cashless Welfare Card The Cashless Welfare Card, also known as the Indue Card, Healthy Welfare Card or Cashless Debit Card, is an Australian debit card, trialled by the Australian Government from 2016 onwards, which quarantines income for people on certain income supp ...

across Australia and for a major overhaul of the federal employment services system, including replacing unnecessary Jobactive appointments with online reporting. In October 2019, he claimed at a Senate inquiry into the

Robodebt scheme The Robodebt scheme was an unlawful method of automated debt assessment and recovery employed by Services Australia as part of its Centrelink payment compliance program. Put in place in July 2016 and announced to the public in December of the sa ...

that the label was a "misnomer". Education and employment have been themes during his time at the Senate, serving on Senate Legislative and General Purpose Standing Committee for Education and Employment, including as its Deputy Chair from mid 2022. In November 2019, he became a member of a new cross-party parliamentary working group into indigenous constitutional recognition and a " voice to government". He is known to be supportive of regional Voice models. Along with Labor Party MP, David Smith, O'Sullivan is a convener Parliamentary Christian Fellowship. Politically, he has been described as part of the National Right grouping in the Liberal Party.

Personal life

O'Sullivan and his wife Montanique live in the southern suburbs of Perth, where they raise their two children Amy and Samuel.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:OSullivan, Matt Living people Liberal Party of Australia members of the Parliament of Australia Members of the Australian Senate Members of the Australian Senate for Western Australia 1978 births