Anne Aly

Anne Azza Aly (, born Azza Mahmoud Fawzi Hosseini Ali el Serougi, 29 March 1967) is an Australian politician who has been a Labor member of the House of Representatives since the 2016 election, representing the electorate of Cowan in Western Australia. In 2025, Aly became Minister for Small Business, Minister for International Development and Minister for Multicultural Affairs, joining Albanese's cabinet. She held the Minister for Early Childhood Education and Minister for Youth portfolio in the Albanese ministry from 2022 to 2025.

Aly is the first female federal parliamentarian of Islamic faith and one of Australia's first two government ministers to be Muslim. She is the first female Muslim national cabinet member in Australian history.

Aly was a professor, lecturer and academic specialising in counter-terrorism, and she is considered a global authority on understanding how and why young people are drawn into violent extremism. Aly founded People Against Violent Extremism (PaVE) to address extremism in Australia. on 29 March 1967. Her mother was a nurse and her father an engineer. When Aly was two years old she and her parents moved to Australia via an assisted migration program, living first in Queensland, before settling in the western Sydney suburbs Lakemba and Chipping Norton, where Aly attended a private Anglican girls' school, Meriden, and her parents worked in factories and as a bus driver. and in 1994, received a Graduate Diploma of Arts (Language Studies) from Edith Cowan University;

Aly was one of eleven MPs in the 46th Parliament of Australia who possesses a PhD, the others being Katie Allen, Fiona Martin, Jim Chalmers, Andrew Leigh, Daniel Mulino, Jess Walsh, Adam Bandt, Mehreen Faruqi, Anne Webster and Helen Haines.

Early career While studying, Aly worked part-time teaching English to migrants. In 2001 Aly became a policy officer for the Government of Western Australia, where she worked in education and multicultural affairs policy from 2000 to 2007, including as a senior policy officer in the Office of Multicultural Interests from 2003.

Aly operated her own policy consulting firm from 2011.

Academic career Aly lectured in counter-terrorism and security at Edith Cowan University from 2009 to 2011, and then at Curtin University from 2011. She was appointed associate professor at Curtin in 2014, and Professor at Edith Cowan in 2015. Aly has written published academic papers, books and newspaper articles on terrorist recruitment and counter-messaging and the involvement of former white supremacists in speaking out against violent extremism.

In 2008, Aly received the Dean's Award for Best New Researcher from Edith Cowan University. The mentoring program includes training through MyHack, which trains university students to brainstorm and develop counter-messaging to extremist propaganda online. and was successful in winning the seat from the incumbent, Luke Simpkins, with a 5.2-point swing, by a margin of 0.68 points. Julie Bishop, Mathias Cormann, John Howard, and Luke Simpkins followed Keenan's lead.

In 2017, Aly was the victim of a fake-news attack claiming that she refused to lay a wreath at an ANZAC Day service in Perth. The story was promulgated by the Love Australia or Leave Party. Aly asserted that she was "insulted by the allegation she refused to lay a wreath". This follows anti-Muslim Facebook posts from Queensland Senator Fraser Anning who co-opted an image of a Muslim family taken in 2005 when their 19-month-old daughter Rahma went missing from their Sydney home, along with the words "If you want a Muslim for a neighbour, just vote Labor". Rahma has never been found.

Aly was reelected in the 2019 federal election with a slightly increased margin of 1.6 points.

In August 2019, a man armed with a knife was arrested at Aly's offices in Cowan. According to Aly the man did not make an outright threat but was brandishing "a fairly large kitchen knife".

On 1 October 2021, during a Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security hearing, Anne Aly questioned ASIO Director-General Mike Burgess on the "implications of listing the entirety of Hamas for pro-Palestinian supporters in Australia, particularly those who organise or attend protests." The Joint Committee subsequently recommended the government consider listing Hamas in its entirety as a terrorist organisation on 14 October 2021.

Aly has stated she believes in marriage equality, is economically conservative and "more left" on social policies, believes in a strict separation of church and state, defends the rights of women to wear a hijab if they choose, though she does not wear one herself, and that she demonstrated against the Iraq war. In her maiden speech, Aly highlighted the growing income disparity and her intention to bring the benefits of growth to every suburb. She also defended the government's position by saying "I think just saying to recognize Palestinian state without any context is in some ways tokenistic".

Aly held her seat in the 2025 federal election, and was promoted to the cabinet as the Minister for Small Business, International Development, and Multicultural Affairs.

Personal life Aly is a three-times-married mother of two boys. Aly has two sons from her first marriage. In 2026, her eldest son, Adam Rida, appeared as a contestant on the second season of the Australian game show The Floor. Her current husband is a former police officer and Canadian ice hockey player David Allen.

Aly lives in Madeley in Western Australia. She has an investment property in Wilson in Western Australia.