Sue Wood
New Zealand politician
Susanne Mary Wood (born 1948) served as the president of the New Zealand National Party from 1982 to 1986, the youngest person and the first woman to hold the post.
Early life and career
Wood was born in Onehunga, Auckland in 1948. She attended Onehunga High School, the University of Auckland, graduating in history, and Auckland Teachers College. She was a swimming champion and coach from 1967 to 1976, and a cadet at the Auckland Star newspaper. She later became a teacher at Onehunga High School.
Political activity
Wood has been a teacher, journalist, swimming coach and business woman both before and after becoming involved in politics. She first became active in the Young Nationals in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In 1974 she became secretary of the party's Epsom branch, becoming women's vice-president in 1977 and serving on the Dominion Policy Committee from 1979.
Wood stood as the party candidate for Onehunga in a 1980 by-election. Though performing well, she was unsuccessful, losing to Labour's Fred Gerbic.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7634340. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1948, 1982, 1986 and 1967.
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This entry incorporates text from “Sue Wood” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.