Louise Elizabeth Markus (born 6 September 1958), Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

n federal politician

Politician

A politician, political leader, or political figure is an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making...

, is a member of the Australian House of Representatives

Australian House of Representatives

The House of Representatives is one of the two houses of the Parliament of Australia; it is the lower house; the upper house is the Senate. Members of Parliament serve for terms of approximately three years....

, initially elected to represent the seat of Greenway

Division of Greenway

The Division of Greenway is anAustralian Electoral Division in New South Wales.The division was created in 1984 and is named for Francis Greenway, an ex-convict who became a prominent architect in colonial Sydney....

 in western Sydney for the Liberal Party of Australia

Liberal Party of Australia

The Liberal Party of Australia is an Australian political party.Founded a year after the 1943 federal election to replace the United Australia Party, the centre-right Liberal Party typically competes with the centre-left Australian Labor Party for political office...

 at the 2004 federal election. Following an unfavourable redistribution

Redistribution (Australia)

The term redistribution is used in Australia to mean a redrawing of electoral boundaries. It is equivalent to the term redistricting in the United States....

 in 2010, she moved to the seat of Macquarie

Division of Macquarie

The Division of Macquarie is an Australian Electoral Division in New South Wales. The division was created in 1900 and was one of the original 75 divisions contested at the first federal election. It is named for Lachlan Macquarie, who was Governor of New South Wales between 1810 and 1821...

.

Early years and background

She was educated at the University of New South Wales

University of New South Wales

The University of New South Wales , is a research-focused university based in Kensington, a suburb in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia...

, graduating in social work, and was a community worker running the Hillsong Church

Hillsong Church

Hillsong Church is a Pentecostal megachurch affiliated with Australian Christian Churches and located in Sydney, Australia. The church's senior pastors, Brian and Bobbie Houston, began the church in 1983 as the Hills Christian Life Centre in Baulkham Hills...

's drug and alcohol outreach service in Blacktown

Blacktown, New South Wales

Blacktown is a suburb in the City of Blacktown, in Western Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Blacktown is located 34 kilometres west of the Sydney central business district and is the administrative centre of the local government area of City of Blacktown.Blacktown is the largest...

 prior to entering politics.

She is married to Jim Markus, who is from Papua New Guinea; together they have two children.

Political career

Subsequent to the 2004 election, allegations were made in the NSW State Parliament that Mrs Markus had directly benefited from unauthorised campaign materials containing false statements in an attempt to capture anti-Islamic sentiment against her Labor opponent.

Markus retained the seat of Greenway with a comfortable margin in the 2007 election, although with a nominal swing of 6.85% against her on a two-party preferred basis.

Following the 2007 election, she was made Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Immigration and Citizenship. She is currently the Shadow Minister for Veteran's Affairs, a portfolio she retained through the Liberal shadow ministry reshuffle of December 8, 2009 precipitated by the change of Federal Liberal Leadership to Tony Abbott

Tony Abbott

Anthony John "Tony" Abbott is the Leader of the Opposition in the Australian House of Representatives and federal leader of the centre-right Liberal Party of Australia. Abbott has represented the seat of Warringah since the 1994 by-election...

.

She lives in Riverstone

Riverstone, New South Wales

Riverstone is a suburb of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Riverstone is located 48 kilometres west of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of the City of Blacktown. Riverstone is part of the Greater Western Sydney region...

, in the east of her (2010) electorate. A September 2006 redistribution of boundaries saw massive changes in the shape of her electorate of Greenway being centred on the Hawkesbury

Electoral district of Hawkesbury

Hawkesbury is an electoral district of the Legislative Assembly in the Australian state of New South Wales. It was represented by Steven Pringle, formerly of the Liberal Party of Australia, who contested the 2007 election as an independent but was defeated by Ray Williams of the Liberal Party of...

 and Blue Mountains rather than Blacktown. The northward shift in electorate boundaries also saw Greenway change from safe Liberal to safe Labor. A further electoral redistribution in 2009 made the seat of Greenway notionally Labor on an estimated margin of 5.7%.

Markus and contested the 2010 federal election as the Liberal candidate for the seat of Macquarie . The 2009 electoral redistribution had dealt a substantial fraction of her former electorate into Macquarie. Markus won the two-party preferred vote

Two-party-preferred vote

In politics, the two-party-preferred vote , or two-candidate-preferred vote , in an election or opinion poll uses preferential voting to express the electoral result after the distribution of preferences...

by 2.52% against labor, with most support in her traditional base in the urban east of the electorate, and high Greens votes in the smaller upper Blue Mountains booths.