Representative Susan Templeman Contact information

Susan Raye Templeman is an Australian politician and member of the Australian Labor Party, born on July 30, 1963. She currently represents the Macquarie division in the Australian House of Representatives and is Australia’s Special Envoy for the Arts. Templeman defeated the Liberal Louise Markus at the 2016 federal election, winning her seat with a 6.7-point two-party preferred swing towards her. She was re-elected in 2019 and 2022. Templeman had previously run twice for the same seat in 2010 and 2013. Two months after her defeat in the 2013 Australian Federal Election, Templeman’s family home in Winmalee was destroyed in the 2013 Blue Mountains bushfires.

Templeman was born in Sydney to an accountant father and public school music teacher mother. Her family owned newsagencies in West Lindfield and Strathfield, and she often worked with her father in the morning paper run. She attended Killara High School and Strathfield Girls High School, and spent six months of her secondary education at Colegio Mochis in Los Mochis, Sinaloa, Mexico, as part of a year-long Rotary exchange program. Templeman graduated from the University of Technology, Sydney, with a Bachelor of Arts in Communications.

Templeman started her career as a journalist in the Canberra Press Gallery in January 1985, during the second Hawke term, and covered the 1987 election campaign. She worked as a radio journalist foreign correspondent for both 2UE and Austereo in New York and London in 1988. Afterward, she became the News Editor for LBC before moving back to Australia to work as the Media Relations officer for Telecom. In 1991, Templeman became a media trainer, establishing Media Skills, which later became the company Templeman Consulting Pty Ltd.

Templeman joined the Labor Party during John Howard’s term in office, citing her concerns about the country becoming a backwards-looking and defensive society. She sought to be preselected as Labor’s candidate for Macquarie at the 2010 federal election and won the rank-and-file preselection against the other nominee, former policewoman Donna Ritchie. Templeman lost to Louise Markus in the 2010 election and was pre-selected again in 2013, suffering a 3.32-point swing against her. She was pre-selected for a third time in 2016 and defeated Markus, winning her seat with a 6.7-point two-party preferred swing towards her.

Templeman was re-elected in 2019 despite a 2.0-point two-party preferred swing against the Australian Labor Party in Macquarie. The result made the seat the most marginal federal seat in Australia, with just 371 votes separating the two major parties. Following her re-election, she was appointed by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese as Special Envoy for the Arts. In 2022, Templeman was re-elected with a 7.7% swing.