Representative Zaneta Mascarenhas

Zaneta Mascarenhas is an Australian politician who was elected to the Australian House of Representatives for the Division of Swan in the 2022 federal election. She was born on 26 July 1980 in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia to Indian immigrant parents of Goan descent who migrated from Kenya. Mascarenhas grew up in Kambalda and attended John Paul College in Kalgoorlie. She studied science and engineering at Curtin University in Perth where she became President of the Student Guild.

Mascarenhas worked as an engineer for 15 years in Western Australia and Victoria, including as a FIFO (fly-in, fly-out) engineer, and volunteered for The Climate Reality Project. She contested the Labor Party preselection for the Division of Swan for the 2019 Australian federal election but withdrew, enabling Hannah Beazley to be preselected. Mascarenhas is part of the Labor Left faction of the Labor Party, and she is supported by the Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union.

In June 2021, she won preselection for Swan at the 2022 Australian federal election, beating Fiona Reid. In the election on 21 May 2022, Mascarenhas won the Division of Swan, succeeding retiring Liberal Party politician Steve Irons and defeating his party’s candidate Kristy McSweeney.