His father was a World War II naval veteran and subsequently established a chain of butcher's shops in Brisbane's southern suburbs, while his mother was a midwife.

[4] Dick became an ALP organiser and was appointed as the party's state secretary and campaign director in 2004, having served as a delegate to the national conference since 2001.

[7] Following Labor's defeat at the 2013 federal election, Dick and Jane Garrett were appointed to lead a review into the party's campaign.

[10] In July 2022, following the ALP's victory at the 2022 federal election, Dick was nominated as the party's candidate for Speaker of the House of Representatives.

[12] In the role, he has been noted for insisting on "safe and respectful" interactions between MPs; a task that political commentator Michelle Grattan has described as "Herculean.

[15] In August 2019 he was one of four Labor MPs to join the Parliamentary Friends of Coal Exports group established by Liberal MP Craig Kelly.

After a sponsored visit to Israel in 2017, he stated that "terms that are often bandied around – like settlements, occupation, apartheid and the wall – these are all easy catchphrases and clichés to use, and often there isn't a counterbalance given to a lot of those arguments".