Trish Doyle

Doyle is a school teacher, and worked on the staff of Blue Mountains MP Phil Koperberg between 2007 and 2011. Doyle ran unsuccessfully as the Labor candidate in 2011 when the then incumbent Keneally Labor Government was swept from power. She was later preselected again ahead of the 2015 New South Wales state election as the Labor candidate. The boundaries of the Blue Mountains electorate were redistributed before the election, increasing the margin for the Liberal Party from 4.7% to 5.4%.

At the 2015 election Doyle topped the first preference vote with 41.2%. There was a swing of 18.7% towards her on first preferences. In the two party preferred distribution, she beat sitting MP Roza Sage with 58.1% of the TPP vote, an increase of 13.5% from the previous election. This was the first time in its history that the seat of Blue Mountains was not won by an MP from the party that would form Government after that election, breaking the bellwether status of the electorate.[2]

Doyle was sworn into the New South Wales Legislative Assembly on 5 May 2015 by the Governor of New South Wales and made her inaugural speech to the Legislative Assembly on 13 May 2015.[3][4]

In November 2018, responding to allegations that the then NSW Labor leader, Luke Foley, had — in 2016 — groped an ABC journalist, Doyle called on Mr Foley to resign his leadership[5] by the end of the day and threatened to put a spill motion to the Labor caucus if he refused.[6] He resigned an hour later.[7]

At the New South Wales state election in March 2019, Doyle was re-elected to her second four-year term with a swing towards her of 6.7%, in Two Party Preferred terms, giving her a final result of 64.9% Two Party Preferred.[8] This is the highest result achieved by a candidate in the Blue Mountains electorate since its establishment in 1968, besting the previous record holder, Labor's Bob Debus, who received 64.8% of the vote in 2003.

In the July 2019 leadership contest, Doyle supported Jodi McKay against Chris Minns to lead NSW Labor. Doyle was promoted to the Shadow Ministry in July 2019[9] by McKay, being given responsibility for Emergency Services, Women and the Prevention of Domestic Violence.

Doyle grew up in Canberra. Her father was violent when she was young. At age 8, she was woken by her father at the end of her bed with a rifle. With her younger brother and sister, she grew up in a community house while her mother healed from the trauma of the incident.[10] Doyle, from age 13, grew up near Wagga Wagga in the NSW Riverina before attending Macquarie University for a teaching degree. Her first husband suffered from depression and psychotic episodes. She has two sons, Patrick and Tom, who live with her in Lawson, New South Wales.[3] She is good friends with former Blue Mountains MP Bob Debus and Federal Deputy Opposition leader Tanya Plibersek.