[1] Smith joined the Liberal Party at the age of 17, and later worked as a policy adviser to Premier of Western Australia Richard Court.

In 1998, he was a senior advisor to Prime Minister John Howard during the Coalition's 1998 federal election campaign.

In 2010, he founded Smith & Duda Consulting, a political lobbying firm,[3] and also served as treasurer of the Liberal Party state branch in Western Australia.

[12] He served on the "Inquiry into the destruction of 46,000 year old caves at the Juukan Gorge in the Pilbara region of Western Australia", which delivered its interim report in December 2020.

[13] He co-authored additional dissenting comments to the Inquiry's final report with George Christensen MP, arguing against the report's recommendation for new Commonwealth heritage legislation because the "duplication of cultural heritage protection laws at a Federal level is not supported by peak [mining] industry bodies.