Meet Lawrence Ben: SA’s 33-year-old man of steel
The Premier’s right-hand man on economics is now an MP with a portfolio encompassing SA’s largest opportunities. InDaily chats with Lawrence Ben, the son-in-law of Labor’s ‘godfather’ Don Farrell, about steel, heritage and his powerful mentor.
Despite becoming South Australia’s first MP of Ukrainian heritage after the state election, Lawrence Ben’s job has not changed too much.
For the past three years, Ben – the son-in-law of Labor powerbroker and Federal Senator Don Farrell – has been by Premier Peter Malinauskas’ side, advising him on the most technical and fragile parts of the state’s economy.
As the Principal Economic Adviser to the Premier, Ben was in the war room when the extraordinary move was made in 2025 to change legislation to wrest control of the Whyalla Steelworks from the billionaire steel mogul Sanjeev Gupta.
He went down into the enormous BHP Olympic Dam mine with the Premier last year, was a key player in negotiations around a multibillion-dollar desalination plant investment, and has been at the coal face on deliberations around the ailing Port Pirie smelter.
Now, as Member for Enfield, his job is more or less the same thanks to his fast appointment as Assistant Minister for Copper, Steel, Critical Metals and Minerals – the bedrock elements on which the state’s economy is becoming more reliant.
“In many ways, I was told to continue the same role that I was playing before, which was to be a coordinating role between the Premier and the Treasurer, who has a lot of responsibility for those areas as Minister for Energy and Mining,” Ben told InDaily in a sit-down interview at Parliament House.
It is a big leap away from his roots in the powerful retail workers’ union: the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association.
Ben – now 33 – joined the Labor party as a teenager, and joined the Shoppies at 20 after he was introduced by Labor party stalwarts Nick Bolkus and Kevin Foley to Peter Malinauskas, who was then the secretary of the union.
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“As a painfully earnest young man, I remember vividly telling him that I wanted to work in the Labor movement to try and help people make a difference, and he responded by telling me that if you believe that in your heart of hearts, you’re in the right place,” Ben said in his maiden speech to State Parliament.
Malinauskas became a mentor to Ben, who spent close to five years with the SDA before heading to New York City for a role as acting political director for the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU).
During that time, the University of Adelaide law graduate met people of all stripes, from the then-Mayor of New York City Bill de Blasio, to poultry plant workers in Alabama.
“Figuring out how to have conversations with everybody and meeting them at their level is a skill set I found valuable when I turn up to Whyalla and need to speak to a welder or blast furnace operator, or the managing director of the steel works,” Ben said.
Ben returned to Adelaide in 2022 and worked as a lawyer for Johnston Withers Lawyers for a brief period before taking on the role with Malinauskas.
Asked how the Premier has changed and grown over the years that Ben has considered him his mentor, the newly minted MP said: “He actually hasn’t changed much”.
“He was someone who was really good at explaining those macroeconomic concepts in really simple ways,” said Ben, who cites the 32nd President of the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt, as his political hero. A picture of the former President hangs in Ben’s office.
“[The Premier] has always been good at leading groups of people towards a common objective, and you can see that in how he leads this government.
“We’re really excited to see what his government can achieve for the state.”
Ben takes on his brand-new portfolio at a crucial time: the Whyalla Steelworks remains in administration and is courting buyers, the Port Pirie smelter is seemingly constantly running out of whatever money the government throws at it, and negotiations with BHP around the multibillion-dollar Northern Water project are ongoing.
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He said his priority was to ensure the “right kind of buyer” purchases the steelworks “to make sure we’re not back here doing this again in another 10 years”, and that he was working closely with BHP “to make sure that we’re in lockstep”.
While critical minerals were “a huge opportunity for the state”, linked to geopolitical objectives and an opportunity for South Australia “to play a further geopolitical role in the region”.
Climbing the ladder as a man of Ukrainian and Labor heritage
Ben made history when he joined SA Parliament.
Born in Adelaide, he was the first MP with Ukrainian heritage. His grandparents fled Europe after spending time captured in a Nazi slave labour camp.
It is a background he is fiercely proud of, and he served as the secretary and committee member for the Association of Ukrainians in South Australia from November 2023 until his election as Member for Enfield.
On his mother’s side were Irish peasant farmers who left in the 1840s for Australia with a “dream to live in a free and prosperous nation”.
The Association of Ukrainians in SA publicised its joy at hearing Ben be the first South Australian to speak the Ukranian language during his maiden speech, saying it was a “very significant day for the Ukrainian community in South Australia”.
But it was his in-laws who had been drawing attention to the young MP. Last year, he married Labor Senator Don Farrell’s daughter Emily. The couple are expecting a child later this year.
In late January, former Member for Enfield Andrea Michaels suddenly announced her retirement from politics. It took one day for the Premier to announce that Ben was running for Enfield in her place.
Asked whether Michaels was asked to step aside for Ben, he said he “wasn’t involved in any of those sorts of conversations”.
And asked whether nepotism played a role in his pre-selection, given his close connections with Farrell, the MP said he made it into parliament off his own back.
“I’ve been involved in the Labor Party since I was a teenager, before I finished high school, and I’ve dedicated my entire career to representing working people,” he said.
“When the opportunity came up to continue that work by being a Member of Parliament, I grabbed it with both hands, and now I’m running with it to do what I always wanted to do since I was a teenager, which was to represent working people.”
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