Anne Aly


Anne Azza Aly 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.
Aly is the first female federal parliamentarian of Muslim faith.
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 to address extremism in Australia.

Early life and education

Aly was born in Alexandria, Egypt in 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.
Aly returned to Egypt for university, then returned to Australia with her first husband to raise their children in Perth close to her retired parents.
Aly graduated from the American University in Cairo in 1990 with a Bachelor of Arts degree with high honours in English Literature, with a minor in Acting; and in 1994, received a Graduate Diploma of Arts from Edith Cowan University; followed by a Master of Education degree in 1996, and PhD in 2008, both from Edith Cowan University. Her PhD thesis focused on media and culture, and was entitled A study of audience responses to the media discourse about the 'Other': The Fear of Terrorism between Australian Muslims and the Broader Community.

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. After the 9/11 attacks she worked on Western Australia's response to the Federal Government's counter-terrorism action plan.
From 2007 to 2008, Aly worked for the Equal Opportunity Commission WA.
Aly operated her own policy consulting firm since 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 is an active member of Curtin University's The Centre for Culture and Technology, leading its Countering Online Violent Extremism research program. 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. In 2009, she won a Publication Award from the Australian Institute of Professional Intelligence Officers, and she was appointed to the Council for Australian Arab Relations at Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and remained on the board for six years. In 2011, she was inducted into the Western Australian Women's Hall of Fame. Aly's research has been funded by the Australian Research Council's Safeguarding Australia Initiative.
In 2011, former prime minister Kevin Rudd launched Aly's first book, Terrorism & Global Security: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives.
In 2013, Aly founded a youth-led not-for-profit organisation, , to address extremism in Australia. PaVE received a $115,000 grant from the federal Attorney-General's Department to develop videos to counter extremism, and in 2015, Aly announced that PaVE had raised $40,800 for a mentoring program for young activists. The mentoring program includes training through MyHack, which trains university students to brainstorm and develop counter-messaging to extremist propaganda online.
In 2014, Aly was a panelist on Islam and terrorism at an Australian Coalition meeting. In 2015, Aly was the only Australian invited to address Barack Obama's Countering Violent Extremism summit at the White House.
In 2016, Aly was nominated for Australian of the Year.

Political career

Aly was preselected as the Labor candidate for Cowan for the 2016 federal election and was successful in winning the seat from the incumbent, Luke Simpkins, with a 5.2% swing, by a slender margin of 0.68 points.
During the 2016 election campaign, Liberal Party Justice Minister Michael Keenan was accused of starting a smear campaign against Aly in regards to her previous counter-terrorism work at PaVE. Deputy PM Julie Bishop, Mathias Cormann, John Howard, and Luke Simpkins followed Keenan's lead. However, prior to Aly becoming a Labor candidate, Simpkins had written to Aly in 2015 to convey his admiration for her counter-terrorism work including "content of your media interviews and approach to the threat of radicalisation," and Aly's work had been actively supported by the Coalition government.
In 2016, Coalition MP George Christensen's Facebook page hosted "highly offensive" comments including death threats aimed at Aly.
Aly was reelected in the 2019 federal election with a slightly increased margin of 1.6%. During the 2019 federal election campaign, unauthorised anonymous flyers were distributed in the Cowan electorate targeting Aly with unsubstantiated claims. The Labor Party condemned the flyers as "racist."
Aly has stated she believes in marriage equality, she is economically conservative and "more left" on social policies, believes in a strict separation of church and state, she doesn't wear a hijab but defends the rights of women to wear it if they choose, 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.

Personal life

Aly is a three-times-married mother of two boys. Her current husband is a former policeman and Canadian ice hockey player David Allen.
In interviews and Aly's 2018 autobiography, Finding My Place, she discusses the domestic abuse she suffered at the hands of her first husband, the pressure she was under to stay with him, and the struggles to raise her sons as a single mother after divorce.