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Born in England in 1979, Downer spent the first twenty years of her life growing up in the Adelaide Hills, where her family has lived for over a century. Downer has extensive experience in foreign policy, most recently as the Director of Asialink Diplomacy at the University of Melbourne. Downer has a degree from Melbourne University and a masters from the London School of Economics, and has worked at the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in Canberra and at Australia's Embassy in Tokyo. After stints as a researcher for former US senator Chuck Hagel and Baroness Elspeth Howe of Idlicote in the UK House of Lords, she worked as a corporate lawyer in Melbourne, and joined the Institute of Public Affairs as an Adjunct Fellow. Downer was a member of the Victorian Liberal Party's Administrative Committee and a director of the Indigenous arts project, The Torch. In 2016, she contested Liberal preselection in the Melbourne seat of Goldstein.
Her father, Alexander Downer, the former Member for Mayo, was at one time leader of the Federal Liberal Party, a diplomat to the European Union and NATO in Brussels, and later became Australia's longest serving foreign minister. Her grandfather, Sir Alick Downer, was a Menzies government cabinet minister and later high commissioner to London. Her great-grandfather, Sir John Downer, was twice premier of South Australia and a senator in the first federal Parliament.
Downer is married to corporate lawyer Will Heath, a partner at King & Wood Mallesons, and has two children, Henry and Margot. She is fluent in French and Japanese. Downer regularly appears on television, radio, in print, and online as a commentator on Australian politics and foreign policy.
