Sally Talbot
Sally Elizabeth Talbot is an Australian politician. She was a [Australian Australian Labor Party (Western Australian Branch)|Labor Party (Western Australian Branch)|Labor Party] member of the Western Australian Legislative Council from 2005 to 2025, representing the region of South West.
In July 2024, she announced her retirement from politics.
Biography
Talbot came from a family active in the British Labour Party where politics was actively discussed and engaged in. At 16 she finished her secondary schooling and attended the Royal College of Music in London, specialising in the cello. She spent the next 15 years working as a musician, however she said her life always turned back to her interest in politics.While attending Murdoch University in Perth in 1983, she joined the staff as a federal member of parliament, her first formal job in politics. In 2001 she became the Assistant Secretary of the Labor Party, a position she held until 2005. It was in this role that she discovered the importance of engaging ordinary citizens in politics to create a better community, thus it was important to have active and healthy political parties. She left her staff role with the party to become a member of parliament, and later as the first President of the Western Australian branch of the Labor Party to be elected by popular ballot in 2008.
Her doctorate in philosophy from Murdoch University was published, "Partial Reason: Critical and Constructive Transformations of Ethics and Epistemology".