Matt Keogh

The Honourable Matt Keogh MP
Keogh in March 2023
Minister for Veterans Affairs
Incumbent
Assumed office 1 June 2022
Prime Minister	Anthony Albanese
Preceded by	Andrew Gee
Minister for Defence Personnel
Incumbent
Assumed office 1 June 2022
Prime Minister	Anthony Albanese
Preceded by	Andrew Gee
Member of theAustralian Parliament forBurt
Incumbent
Assumed office 2 July 2016(2016-07-02)
Preceded by	new seat
Personal details
Born	Matthew James Keogh (1981-11-11)11 November 1981 Armadale, Western Australia,Australia
Spouse	Annabel
Alma mater	University of Notre Dame Australia
Website	www.mattkeogh

Matthew James Keogh(born 11 November 1981) is an Australian politician. He is a member of theAustralian Labor Party(ALP) and has beenMinister for Veterans' AffairsandMinister for Defence Personnelin theAlbanese governmentsince 2022. He has been a member of theHouse of Representativessince 2016, representing theWestern Australianseat ofBurt.He worked as a lawyer before entering politics.

Early life

Keogh was born on 11 November 1981 inArmadale, Western Australia.He is the son of Helen (néeTravers) and Colin Keogh. His paternal grandfather Peter Travers was "the first lawyer in the Armadale–Gosnellsarea ".

Keogh grew up in theKelmscott Hills,attendingMazenod College.He went on to theUniversity of Notre Dame Australia,completing aBachelor of Arts(Hons.) in politics and history and aBachelor of Laws.While at university he worked as a customer service officer foriiNet.He was also a clerk and bookkeeper at his mother's law firm Travers & Keogh, where he later worked as a solicitor from 2005 to 2006.

Keogh was a policy officer at the state Department of Premier and Cabinet from 2003 to 2005. He joined theCommonwealth Director of Public Prosecutionsas a prosecutor in 2006, before moving to private practice in 2011 as a commercial lawyer withHerbert Smith Freehills.He served as president of the Law Society of Western Australia in 2015 and was a director of theLaw Council of Australia.

Political career

Keogh joined the Australian Labor Party in 1997 and was state president ofYoung Laborin 2007.He is a member ofLabor Right.

After being unsuccessful as Labor's candidate at theSeptember 2015 federal by-electioninCanning,which precipitatedMalcolm TurnbulldeposingTony AbbottasPrime Minister of Australia,Keogh ran successfully in the 2016 federal election for the electorate of Burt. The new seat included a third of Canning's old territory, and on paper was notionally Liberal. However, it included much of the more urbanised portion of the old Canning, and much of the seat's territory was represented by Labor at state level. Keogh won the seat on a swing of more than 13 points.

Following his election in 2016, Keogh was elected the deputy chair of theLabor Caucus,appointed the Labor Opposition Waste Watch spokesperson and became a member of the House Economics Committee, which was tasked with inquiring into the Australian banks,as well as the House Agriculture & Water Committee and the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services.Keogh was re-elected in 2019. Following the2019 election,Keogh was elected to the Laborfront benchand allocated the portfolios ofShadow Minister for DefenceIndustry,Shadow Ministerfor WA Resources and Shadow Minister Assisting for Small and Family Business.

After the ALP's victory at the2022 election,Keogh was appointedMinister for Veterans' AffairsandMinister for Defence Personnelin theAlbanese government.

Personal

Keogh met his wife atlaw school:the two married in 2011. They have two sons.