John Carey (Australian politician)

John Newton Carey (born 11 July 1974) is an Australian politician who is the Labor member for the seat of Perth in the Western Australian Legislative Assembly.

Carey founded Western Australia's first town team: the Beaufort Street Network, and was co-founder of the then popular street festival, the Beaufort Street Festival.[1]

Before being elected as Mayor of the City of Vincent, Carey worked for five years as the Director of the Kimberley Conservation Project for the Pew Environment Group, where he successfully campaigned for the creation of the Great Kimberley Marine Park.[2][3]

He was the mayor of the City of Vincent from 2013 to 2017.[4][5][6][7] As Mayor of Vincent, he advocated for greater transparency and accountability in local government, writing and releasing a public discussion paper "Raising the Bar", and introduced a series of measures to enhance public reporting at the City of Vincent, including an online gifts register and WA's first contact with developers register.[8][9][10][11]

During his tenure in 2016 with a new CEO at the helm and council, the City of Vincent was independently rated first among 25 councils, receiving an overall performance score of 82 out of 100, compared to 16th out of 18 councils in 2010.[12] The Catalyse Community Scorecard surveys households across a local government area, and found the City of Vincent ranked highest in 18 out of 40 benchmarks, including place to live, governing organisation, and the city's leadership within the community.[13]

On his election at the State Member for Perth, he was appointed the Parliamentary Secretary to the Premier; Minister for Public Sector Management; State Development, Jobs and Trade; Federal-State Relations. He received the additional appointment of Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Transport; Planning; Lands on 3 August 2017.[14]

Carey is openly gay.[15]