[7] Urban first contested Darling Range for Labor at the 2013 state election, but was heavily defeated by incumbent Tony Simpson, winning only 34.7 percent of the two-party vote.
Urban was again pre-selected to contest the electorate at the 2017 state election, this time defeating Simpson, achieving an 18.9% two-party preferred swing amid the Liberals' meltdown in Perth.
[8] A day later, he issued a statement saying that he had ordered a commemorative International Police Service Medal from a military supply store because he felt he was entitled to one, but had received a POSM in error.
In addition, the University of Leeds stated that it had no record of Urban attending the institution, or completing a Bachelor of Arts in health and physical education there, as he had claimed.
[9] His claims to have completed a certificate of higher education in policing at the University of Portsmouth, and a diploma of local government in Western Australia, were also questioned, and later found to be false.
[10] In response to Urban's statement, the United Nations and Overseas Policing Association of Australia announced it would be lobbying Australian federal parliamentarians to make it a criminal offence "with considerable penalties" for people to wear medals to which they are not entitled.