Dominic Perrottet


Dominic Francis Perrottet, an Australian politician, is the New South Wales Treasurer since January 2017 in the Berejiklian government. Perrottet was elected as the Deputy Leader of the New South Wales Liberal Party also in January 2017. He has been a member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly representing the seat of Epping for the Liberal Party since 2019, having previously represented Castle Hill from 2011 to 2015 and Hawkesbury from 2015 to 2019.
Perrottet has previously served as the Minister for Industrial Relations in the first Berejiklian ministry; the Minister for Finance, Services and Property in the second Baird ministry; the Minister for Finance and Services in the first Baird ministry.

Early life and background

Perrottet was born in 1982, and raised in West Pennant Hills, Sydney. He is the third eldest of 12 children. His father, John Perrottet, works for the World Bank as the Global Lead for Tourism at the International Finance Corporation, in Washington, DC.
Perrottet was educated at Redfield College in Dural and Oakhill College in Castle Hill. Perrottet was active in student politics while studying commerce and law at the University of Sydney and campaigned for voluntary student unionism. He went on to work as a commercial lawyer for Henry Davis York in the areas of banking restructuring and insolvency law.
Perrottet was the President of the NSW Young Liberals Movement in 2005 and served on the NSW State Executive of the Liberal Party from 2008 to 2011.

Political career

Following the resignation of sitting Liberal MP Michael Richardson, Perrottet won Liberal preselection for the very safe Liberal seat of Castle Hill in November 2010, with the backing of right-wing power broker David Clarke. Clarke battled against Alex Hawke, Federal Member for Mitchell, to gain control of preselections. At the 2011 state election, Perrottet was elected with a swing of 12.2 per cent, and won 80.8 per cent of the vote on a two party preferred basis.
With the resignation of Barry O'Farrell as Premier, and the subsequent ministerial reshuffle by Mike Baird, the new Liberal Leader, Perrottet was appointed as Minister for Finance and Services in April 2014.
Following a redistribution of electoral boundaries, Perrottet traded seats with fellow Liberal Ray Williams for the 2015 state election. Perrottet handed Castle Hill to Williams to run in Williams' equally safe seat of Hawkesbury. Perrottet was elected with 68 per cent of the two-party preferred vote.
After the resignation of Baird as Premier, the main factions of the NSW Liberals agreed to support his deputy, Gladys Berejiklian, as his successor, with Perrottet as her deputy. Berejiklian is from the party's moderate wing, while Perrottet is from the conservative wing. Accordingly, on 23 January 2017, Berejiklian and Perrottet were unanimously elected as leader and deputy leader of the NSW Liberal Party.
Later that day, Berejiklian was sworn in as New South Wales' second female Premier. When Berejiklian reshuffled her ministry, Perrottet took over her former ministerial roles as Treasurer and Minister for Industrial Relations, with effect from 30 January 2017.
In the lead up to the 2019 state election, Perrottet attempted to wrest Castle Hill back from Williams, citing work-life balance as Hawkesbury was too far for him to travel. This was unsuccessful, with Williams retaining the Liberal preselection, and resulted in media reports of significant party infighting and Perrottet publicly apologising. Eventually, Perrottet abandoned the Hawkesbury preselection, and he settled on his second-choice, the equally safe seat of Epping. At the 2019 state election Perrottet was elected as Member for Epping and reappointed as Treasurer in the second Berejiklian ministry.