Michael Pettersson
Michael Pettersson is an Australian politician and a Labor member of the ACT Legislative Assembly for Yerrabi since 2016. He grew up in Canberra and studied at the Australian National University, where he led student groups including the ACT Branch of the National Union of Students, the ANU Sport & Recreation Association, and ACT Young Labor. After university, he worked as a trade unionist for the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union.
Pettersson ran for Yerrabi in the 2016 ACT election and won, finishing third in the five-seat electorate with 4,817 primary votes. He was noted for his creative use of social media in the campaign. He was re-elected in 2020, finishing second behind Alistair Coe with 5,084 votes.
In Parliament, Pettersson serves as the Chair of the Standing Committee for Education and Community Inclusion, the Deputy Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, and a member of the Health and Community Wellbeing Committee. In his inaugural speech, he spoke about intergenerational inequality, the importance of education, and the casualisation of work.
He has campaigned for more light rail and for expanding Canberra’s e-scooter network in Yerrabi. In April 2021, he sponsored an e-petition and moved a motion to improve facilities at Yerrabi Pond, which gained cross-party support.
Pettersson is part of the Labor Left faction. In 2018 he introduced a bill to decriminalise possession and personal use of small cannabis amounts, and this became law in September 2019, making the ACT the first Australian jurisdiction to decriminalise cannabis. In February 2021 he introduced a bill to decriminalise small quantities of some hard drugs, with an inquiry underway in 2021. Outside politics, he enjoys chess—having played in the 25th ANU Chess Open—mountain biking, and yoga, and he is a fan of the TV show Survivor.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 15:12 (CET).