Deborah O'Neill

O'Neill joined the Senate on the opposition benches of the 44th Parliament of Australia serving on the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade.

Deborah Mary O'Neill (born 4 June 1961) is an Australian politician who has served as a Senator for New South Wales with the Australian Labor Party since 2013.

Before entering politics O'Neill was a school teacher and university academic.

In her Senate role, she has been described as taking "a fierce approach to accountability."

In June 2023, O'Neill was appointed to chair the newly formed Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services.

In this role, the committee has largely focused on failures of governance and public accountability amongst the large consulting firms Deloitte, EY, KPMG and PwC.

O'Neill was born in Parramatta, New South Wales.

She grew up in Western Sydney, one of six children born to Irish Catholic immigrants Mary and Jim O'Neill.

Her mother was born in Thomastown and her father in Cork, though they met in Manchester, England.

Drawn by a sense of opportunity and the image "of washing drying in the sun in their own backyard", they migrated to Australia.

It is reported that, having established her home, and pregnant with their third child, O'Neill heard Paul Keating's 1996 speech on creating a modern Australia; and then decided to join the Labor Party.

O'Neill would go on to serve, primarily, in federal politics.

Her main areas of activity having been the policy areas of small business, finance and corporations, women's rights and education.

She is connected to the conservative right flank of the Labor party, a member the "shoppies" faction, backed by the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association, along with senior Labor figures including Don Farrell and Jacinta Collins.

Her political life began in New South Wales state politics, challenging the Liberal Party's Chris Hartcher for the seat of Gosford in the state election of 2003, reducing his margin to 272 votes.

She challenged Hartcher again in the 2007 NSW election, this time in the newly created seat of Terrigal, but was defeated.

Entering federal politics, O'Neill was chosen as Labor candidate for Robertson gaining preselection over incumbent Labor member, Belinda Neal.

As a result, O'Neill automatically held Irish citizenship by descent; until renouncing it prior to the 2010 election.

O'Neill attended Catholic primary schools in Marayong and Girraween and high school at St Patrick's College, Campbelltown.

At age 11, she took it upon herself to manage the invoicing for her parents' construction and plant hire business, which they had financed by selling the family home.

O'Neill began an arts degree, but withdrew when her younger sister, Helen, was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia.

With her passing, O'Neill returned to tertiary studies, fulfilling a promise she made to her sister to become a teacher.

O'Neill completed a Bachelor of Arts at the University of Sydney and University of New England, a Diploma of Teaching and Master of Arts at Australian Catholic University, and a graduate diploma at Deakin University.

When interviewed in 2023, O'Neill indicated that family and community life gave her a strong sense of social justice, which propelled her first into a teaching a career, then politics.

Following university, she worked as a high school teacher and later as an academic in the Faculty of Education and Arts at The University of Newcastle, Central Coast Campus.

O'Neill taught at Mercy Catholic College Chatswood, where she would meet her future husband, then at St Edward's College, East Gosford, and Corpus Christi College.

After marrying she moved to the Central Coast where the couple have raised their three children.

She went on to win the seat for Labor at the 2010 Australian federal election, defeating the Liberal candidate Darren Jameson, and increasing Labor's margin by 1 point.

She served with Labor under Prime Minister Julia Gillard, joining Committees for Health and Ageing; for Education and Employment; and Chairing the Committee on Corporations and Financial Services, at the behest of then assistant treasurer, Bill Shorten At the 2013 election, O'Neill suffered a 4-point swing against her, being defeated by the Liberals' Lucy Wicks.

Her legacy from this time in office was the construction of a cancer clinic for the local region.

O'Neill re-entered the Parliament of Australia a few weeks after the 2013 election, only as a Senator for NSW.

This followed Bob Carr's resignation from the Senate on 24 October 2013, both of that term and the following six-year term.

As vacant Senate positions are filled by the respective state or territory, the matter was resolved by a joint sitting of NSW Parliament, which took four minutes, with the President of the Legislative Council appointing O'Neill to the Senate, in the term which had begun on 1 July.

Her anticipated six-year term did not eventuate due to the double dissolution of parliament in 2016.

While serving as Senator for NSW, O'Neill has also been made Labor's duty Senator for the divisions of Farrer, Lyne, Hume, Parkes, Calare and Riverina.

Regardless, O'Neill was elected to the Senate in her own right in the 2016 Australian federal election.

In the first sitting of the new Senate she was chosen to be one of the six-year senators in accordance with Section 13 of the Constitution.

Serving under Opposition Leader Bill Shorten, she was appointed as Shadow Assistant Minister for Mental Health and Shadow Assistant Minister for Innovation.

O'Neill chose to abstain from the Senate Vote on the Same Sex Marriage Bill in 2017.

Her strong opposition to Matthias Corman's proposal to reduce corporate tax in 2018 led to her being listed amongst "Women Who Are Absolutely Done Listening To Men."