Susan Templeman

In the 45th Parliament, Templeman was appointed to the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties.

Templeman is a member of the Joint Standing Committee on the Broadcasting of Parliamentary Proceedings, and the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Communications and the Arts.

Susan Raye Templeman (born 30 July 1963) is an Australian politician.

She is the member for Macquarie in the Australian House of Representatives and is Australia's Special Envoy for the Arts.

Templeman began her career in January 1985, during the second Hawke term, as a journalist in the Canberra Press Gallery, at Old Parliament House.

At the time she was the youngest permanent journalist in the press gallery.

She covered the 1987 election campaign.

In 1988, Templeman and her husband moved to New York, and then London working as radio journalist foreign correspondents for both 2UE and Austereo.

Templeman then 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 has been described as "one of Australia's most successful media trainers".

Templeman joined the Labor Party during John Howard's term in office.

Describing her reasons for joining the Party, Templeman said:"'I could not sit by and see Australia becoming a backwards-looking and defensive society. Apparently, we no longer cared about being a republic or about Aboriginal reconciliation. We moved away from inclusion and we distanced ourselves from Asia. That was not the Australia I wanted for my children. So I joined the Labor Party, with no clear ambition other than to help get rid of John Howard. Not a bad one.'"

Templeman had previously run twice for the same seat, in 2010 and 2013.

Templeman sought to be preselected as Labor's candidate for Macquarie at the 2010 federal election, and was the preferred candidate of the outgoing member, and former minister, Bob Debus.

The preselection was marred with controversy, and required the intervention of the ALP's national executive, which ordered a rank-and-file preselection.

Templeman, a member of the Socialist Left Faction, or hard left, of the ALP, was locked in a bitter battle with former Blue Mountains mayor, Adam Searle, a member of the Ferguson Left, or soft left.

Searle was backed by the members of the soft left, members of the Labor Right faction and factional powerbroker Mark Arbib, but Templeman ultimately prevailed in the rank-and-file preselection, gaining 84 votes against the only other nominee, former policewoman Donna Ritchie.

At the 2010 election, Macquarie was the fourth most marginal Labor-held seat in the country.

Templeman, who was touted as a "Western Sydney soccer mum", lost, with Labor suffering a 1.54-point two-party preferred swing, delivering the seat to former Member for Greenway and Liberal candidate for Macquarie, Louise Markus.

Just 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 pre-selected again in 2013, suffering a 3.32-point swing against her.

She is a member of the Australian Labor Party and defeated the Liberal Louise Markus at the 2016 federal election.

At the 2016 election, Templeman defeated Louise Markus, winning the Division of Macquarie with a 6.7-point two-party preferred swing towards her.

On primary votes, Templeman saw a 4.5-point swing towards her.

Reasons for the increased support included her stance on issues such as opposition to the Western Sydney Airport and support for road infrastructure in the City of Hawkesbury, including a third bridge over the Hawkesbury River.

She was pre-selected for a third time in 2016.

At the 2016 election, Templeman defeated the incumbent Louise Markus, winning the Division of Macquarie with a 6.7-point two-party preferred swing towards her.

On primary votes, Templeman saw a 4.5-point swing towards her, as well as the largest swing at an ordinary polling booth on Election Day in the country, where she recorded a 31.55-point swing in Kurrajong East

She was re-elected in 2019.

Templeman was re-elected in 2019 despite a 2.0-point two-party preferred swing against the Australian Labor Party in Macquarie.

The result saw the seat become the most marginal federal seat in Australia, with just 371 votes separating the two major parties.

Templeman was re-elected at the 2022 Australian federal election with a 7.7% swing.

Following her re-election, she was appointed by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese as Special Envoy for the Arts.

Templeman was born in Sydney, and is the daughter of an accountant father and public school music teacher mother.

The family owned newsagencies in West Lindfield and Strathfield, with Templeman regularly working the morning paper run with her father.

Templeman credits her upbringing in the newsagency for her becoming a journalist.

Templeman attended Killara High School and Strathfield Girls High School.

She spent an additional six months of her secondary education at Colegio Mochis in Los Mochis, Sinaloa, Mexico as part of a year as a Rotary exchange student.

Templeman stated that the exchange:"'Opened my eyes to the world and to the challenges of inequality and discrimination in a way my seven public schools had not.'"Templeman graduated from the University of Technology, Sydney with a Bachelor of Arts in Communications.