[3] Piper was first elected to the City of Lake Macquarie Council in 1991 as an independent councillor and was deputy mayor through 2000.

He was also on the Hunter Waste Management and Planning Board for a number of years including a period as chair.

[3] He was directly elected as the mayor of Lake Macquarie in March 2004 and again in September 2008, where he received 60% of the first-preference vote.

[3] He was overwhelmingly re-elected in the 2019 New South Wales state election, winning by a two-candidate vote of 72.1% against Labor's Jo Smith.

[5] Piper was also re-elected at the 2023 election with a first-preference vote of over 58%,[6] he accepted the offer of the minority Labor government to become Speaker of the Legislative Assembly.