Sarah Connolly (born 29 December 1981) is an Australian politician. She has been an

Australian Labor Party The Australian Labor Party (ALP), also simply known as Labor, is the major centre-left political party in Australia, one of two major parties in Australian politics, along with the centre-right Liberal Party of Australia. The party forms the f ...

member of the

Victorian Legislative Assembly The Victorian Legislative Assembly is the lower house of the bicameral Parliament of Victoria in Australia; the upper house being the Victorian Legislative Council. Both houses sit at Parliament House in Spring Street, Melbourne. The presiding ...

since 2018, representing the electorates of

Tarneit Tarneit () is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia, west of Melbourne's Melbourne City Centre, Central Business District, located within the City of Wyndham Local government areas of Victoria, local government area. ...

(2018-2022) and Laverton (2022-present) in Melbourne's outer west.

Early life

Connolly grew up in the coastal township of

Kingscliff Kingscliff is a coastal town just south of Tweed Heads in the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales, Australia, and is a beach community offering a variety of holiday accommodations. Together with the villages of Chinderah and Fingal, it i ...

in northern New South Wales. Connolly holds a

B.L. Bachelor of Laws ( la, Legum Baccalaureus; LL.B.) is an undergraduate law degree in the United Kingdom and most common law jurisdictions. Bachelor of Laws is also the name of the law degree awarded by universities in the People's Republic of Chi ...

from the

University of Queensland , mottoeng = By means of knowledge and hard work , established = , endowment = A$224.3 million , budget = A$2.1 billion , type = Public research university , chancellor = Peter Varghese , vice_chancellor = Deborah Terry , city = B ...

and Graduate Diploma of Legal Practice from the

Queensland University of Technology Queensland University of Technology (QUT) is a public research university located in the urban coastal city of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. QUT is located on two campuses in the Brisbane area viz. Gardens Point and Kelvin Grove. The univ ...

Early career

Prior to entering into politics, Connolly has worked in the criminal justice system and as a judge’s associate and in a law firm. She also has experience working for the

Australian Competition and Consumer Commission The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) is the chief competition regulator of the Government of Australia, located within the Department of the Treasury. It was established in 1995 with the amalgamation of the Australian Tra ...

Australian Energy Regulator The Australian Energy Regulator (AER) is the regulator of the wholesale electricity and gas markets in Australia. It is part of the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission and enforces the rules established by the Australian Energy Market Co ...

and spent over a decade working across public and privately-owned energy networks in policy, legislative reform and regulatory frameworks.

Personal life

Connolly is married to Scott Connolly, Assistant Secretary of the

Australian Council of Trade Unions The Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), originally the Australasian Council of Trade Unions, is the largest peak body representing workers in Australia. It is a national trade union centre of 46 affiliated unions and eight trades and la ...

. Together they have three children.

Political career

Connolly was pre-selected by the Labor Party as its candidate for Tarneit in 2017 and went on to be elected during the

2018 Victorian State Election Eighteen or 18 may refer to: * 18 (number), the natural number following 17 and preceding 19 * one of the years 18 BC, AD 18, 1918, 2018 Film, television and entertainment * ''18'' (film), a 1993 Taiwanese experimental film based on the short ...

. She is currently a Board Member of VicHealth, a member of the Transport Workers Union, and the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association. She transferred to the new seat of Laverton, which had been established in a redistribution, at the 2022 election.

References

Living people Australian Labor Party members of the Parliament of Victoria Members of the Victorian Legislative Assembly Women members of the Victorian Legislative Assembly 21st-century Australian politicians Labor Right politicians 1981 births University of Queensland alumni Queensland University of Technology alumni 21st-century Australian women politicians {{Australia-Labor-Victoria-MP-stub