Samuel Birrell is a member of the

Australian House of Representatives The House of Representatives is the lower house of the bicameral Parliament of Australia, the upper house being the Senate. Its composition and powers are established in Chapter I of the Constitution of Australia. The term of members o ...

for the

division of Nicholls The Division of Nicholls is an Australian Electoral Division in the state of Victoria, which was contested for the first time at the 2019 federal election. Geography Federal electoral division boundaries in Australia are determined at redistr ...

in northern Victoria and a member of the National Party. In the

2022 Australian federal election The 2022 Australian federal election was held on Saturday 21 May 2022 to elect members of the 47th Parliament of Australia. The incumbent Liberal/National Coalition government, led by Prime Minister Scott Morrison, sought to win a fourth cons ...

, Birrell won a race between a Liberal Party candidate and independent candidate Rob Priestly.

Early life

Birrell grew up on a property on Victoria's

Goulburn River The Goulburn River, a major inland perennial river of the Goulburn Broken catchment, part of the Murray-Darling basin, is located in the alpine, Northern Country/North Central, and Southern Riverina regions of the Australian state of Victor ...

between the towns of Murchison and

Toolamba Toolamba is a town in the Goulburn Valley region of Victoria, Australia. It is in the City of Greater Shepparton local government area, north of the state capital, Melbourne. At the , Toolamba and the surrounding area had a population of 873 ...

. His father was a lawyer and his mother was a schoolteacher. He attended

Shepparton High School Shepparton High School (SHS) was a public high school in Shepparton, Victoria, Australia. It opened in 1909 as Shepparton Agricultural High School – the first high school in Shepparton and one of the first public high schools in Victoria. It c ...

for two years then completed his secondary education as a boarder at Assumption College, Kilmore. After leaving high school, Birrell worked on a farm in Ardmona for two years before completing a degree in agricultural science at the

University of Melbourne The University of Melbourne is a public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is Australia's second oldest university and the oldest in Victoria. Its main campus is located in Parkville, an inner suburb no ...

's Dookie campus. He later completed an MBA at

La Trobe University La Trobe University is a public research university based in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Its main campus is located in the suburb of Bundoora. The university was established in 1964, becoming the third university in the state of Victoria a ...

's Shepparton campus in 2017.

Career

After graduating university, Birrell worked as an

agronomist An agriculturist, agriculturalist, agrologist, or agronomist (abbreviated as agr.), is a professional in the science, practice, and management of agriculture and agribusiness. It is a regulated profession in Canada, India, the Philippines, the ...

for a rural supplies business, specialising in pest identification and soil and leaf analysis. He later worked for irrigation supplier

Netafim Netafim is an Israeli manufacturer of irrigation equipment. The company produces drippers, dripperlines, sprinklers and micro-emitters. Netafim also manufactures and distributes crop management technologies, including monitoring and control syste ...

. Birrell was appointed CEO of the Committee for Greater Shepparton in 2016. He resigned the position in 2021 to run for parliament.

Politics

In January 2022, Birrell won Nationals

preselection Preselection is the process by which a candidate is selected, usually by a political party, to contest an election for political office. It is also referred to as candidate selection. It is a fundamental function of political parties. The presele ...

for the seat of Nicholls at the 2022 federal election, following the retirement of incumbent Nationals MP

Damian Drum Damian Kevin Drum (born 28 July 1960) is an Australian politician who has represented Murray and Nicholls in the Australian House of Representatives since the 2016 federal election as a member of The Nationals. Drum served as the Assistant Mi ...

. He retained Nicholls for the Nationals on a substantially reduced primary vote, with significant swings to the

Liberal Liberal or liberalism may refer to: Politics * a supporter of liberalism ** Liberalism by country * an adherent of a Liberal Party * Liberalism (international relations) * Sexually liberal feminism * Social liberalism Arts, entertainment and m ...

candidate Steve Brooks and independent candidate Rob Priestly.

Political views

Birrell supported a Designated Area Migration Agreement (DAMA) for the

Goulburn Valley The Goulburn Valley is a sub-region, part of the Hume region of the Australian state of Victoria. The sub-region consists of those areas in the catchment of the Goulburn River and other nearby streams, and is part of the Murray-Darling Basin. T ...

. In 2021 he appeared before a parliamentary inquiry into skilled migration, advocating for "an immediate global recruitment campaign to attract migrants with in-demand skills" to help fill job shortages in regional areas.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Birrell, Sam National Party of Australia members of the Parliament of Australia Members of the Australian House of Representatives Members of the Australian House of Representatives for Nicholls Living people 21st-century Australian politicians Year of birth missing (living people) University of Melbourne alumni Australian agronomists La Trobe University alumni