Susan Margaret Piper (born 1951) is a retired New Zealand trade unionist and local politician.

Biography

Piper was born in

Wellington Wellington is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the third-largest city in New Zealand (second largest in the North Island ...

in 1951. Her parents were Leon Bremmer "Pip" Piper and Margaret Neilson "Tilly" Hunter, both were trade unionists and active members of the Communist Party of New Zealand (CPNZ). As a child Piper and her brother Michael told anyone who would listen that they were communists and accordingly "they expected to share everything we thersowned." Her mother Tilly divorced her father and remarried in 1959. Tilly had left the CPNZ and joined the Labour Party. Years later from 1993 to 2008 Tilly was Labour MP Annette King's electorate secretary for the and then the electorates, despite not initially supporting King for the Labour nomination, regarding her as a right-winger. Tilly was an unsuccessful Labour candidate for the

Wellington City Council Wellington City Council is a Territorial authorities of New Zealand, territorial authority in New Zealand, governing the city of Wellington, the country's capital city and List of cities in New Zealand#City councils, third-largest city by popul ...

in both

1977 Events January * January 8 – 1977 Moscow bombings, Three bombs explode in Moscow within 37 minutes, killing seven. The bombings are attributed to an Armenian separatist group. * January 10 – Mount Nyiragongo erupts in eastern Zaire (no ...

and

1980 Events January * January 4 – U.S. President Jimmy Carter proclaims a United States grain embargo against the Soviet Union, grain embargo against the USSR with the support of the European Commission. * January 6 – Global Positioning Sys ...

. She was later awarded a Queen's Service Medal for public services at the 2001 New Year Honours. Her father Pip was also an unsuccessful Labour candidate for the Wellington City Council in both 1986 and

1989 1989 was a turning point in political history with the "Revolutions of 1989" which ended communism in Eastern Bloc of Europe, starting in Poland and Hungary, with experiments in power-sharing coming to a head with the opening of the Berlin W ...

in the Northern Ward. Piper was involved in the anti-Vietnam War movement and became a member of the Labour Party herself. In 1974 she stood as a Labour candidate for the

, but was unsuccessful. She was on the organising committee of the 1975 United Women's Convention, working alongside leading feminist organisers such as Ros Noonan, Deirdre Milne and Margaret Shields. Piper worked in a number of unions, including the Clerical Workers Union, the Early Childhood Workers Union and the Public Service Association (PSA), where she was an executive officer from 1982 to 1987. In 1988 she stood for president of the PSA and won with 56,027 votes to 36,790 for PSA vice-president Colin Feslier. She was the first woman to hold the position. In 1992 she stood for the Labour nomination for the seat of ahead of the , but lost out to regional councillor and former All Black Ken Gray. A few months later Piper contemplated standing for the Labour Party in the 1992 Wellington Central by-election. When Gray died before he could contest the Western Hutt seat Piper was nominated again for the seat as his replacement. As she lived outside the electorate she was thought an outside chance of winning with no local support base and looked opportunistic. Piper stated that the only reason she had been nominated was that there was in fact local support for her. Piper was elected a member of the

from 1995 to 2004. In her first term as a councillor she was appointed as chairman of the council's community, culture and recreation committee after the resignation of John Gilberthorpe after his appointment as executive director of the Wellington Museums Trust. After being re-elected in 1998 she became the leader of the Labour members on the council and was a contender for the job of deputy mayor. She was chair of the Local Government Commission for six years, and chair of Sport Wellington. She has been president of Croquet New Zealand and served on the board of

Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa The Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa is New Zealand's national museum and is located in Wellington. Usually known as Te Papa ( Māori for ' the treasure box'), it opened in 1998 after the merging of the National Museum of New Zealand ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Piper, Sue 1951 births Living people New Zealand Labour Party politicians Wellington City Councillors People associated with the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa New Zealand trade unionists New Zealand sports executives and administrators