Racism, Revenge Porn & Nauru

Panellists: Mitch Fifield, Minister for Communications; Catherine King, Shadow Health Minister; Corinne Grant, Comedian & Writer; Brendan O’Neill, Editor, spiked magazine; and Erin Watson-Lynn, Academic and entrepreneur. -- Mitch Fifield Mitch Fifield is Minister for Communications and the Arts and manager of Government Business in the Senate. He entered Parliament as a Liberal Senator for Victoria in 2004 and held several shadow ministerial positions before becoming Assistant Minister for Social Services when the coalition won government in 2013. When Malcolm Turnbull took over as Prime Minister from Tony Abbott Mitch was promoted to Cabinet in the Communications portfolio. Before entering Parliament, Mitch worked as a senior political adviser to the former Federal Treasurer, Peter Costello, and held senior advisory positions in the Kennett government in Victoria and the Greiner government in NSW. Mitch has served as a reservist in the Australian Army Psychology Corps and studied politics at Sydney University. -- Catherine King Catherine King, shadow health minister, was first elected to Parliament in 2001 to represent the Victorian electorate of Ballarat. She has continued to hold the seat in the five elections since. After the 2010 election Catherine was made a parliamentary secretary and in 2013 she entered the Gillard government ministry in the portfolios of regional services, local communities and territories and road safety. She was promoted to Cabinet in July 2013 as Minister for Regional Australia, Local Government and Territories in the Rudd government. After Labor’s loss in the September 2013 election she became shadow health minister. Catherine holds a degree in social work and a masters in public policy from the Australian National University, and is currently completing a law degree from Deakin University. Catherine worked in the social welfare sector in Ballarat and later in the public sector in Canberra, as an assistant director for the Commonwealth Department of Health and Aged Care and then as a director. Prior to entering Parliament she was a senior manager at KPMG’s health consulting practice. She is married with one son. -- Corinne Grant Corinne Grant is best known for her work on Rove Live and the Glasshouse. She is an accomplished comedian, writer, author and broadcaster. Corinne Grant currently serves on the board of the community legal centre, Fitzroy Legal Service, and is a former Federal Vice President of the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance. She is an ambassador for the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre and the National Breast Cancer Foundation’s Mother’s Day Classic. She has recently completed a law degree, graduating from the University of Melbourne with a Juris Doctor. She is now undertaking her legal traineeship at Maurice Blackburn. -- Brendan O'Neill Brendan O'Neill is editor of spiked, the online magazine with the modest ambition of making history as well as reporting it. He is the author of Can I Recycle My Granny and 39 Other Eco-Dilemmas – a satire on the green movement, and is a regular columnist for The Australian. He started his career in journalism at LM (Living Marxism), until it was forced to close following a libel action brought by ITN. His journalism has been widely published on both sides of the Atlantic, including in The Spectator, The New Statesman, The Guardian, The Catholic Herald and The Christian Science Monitor. He also writes regular reports for BBC News Online and is a correspondent for the Polish political weekly Prze Kroj. He makes regular appearances across the British and American broadcast media. He is also co-founder of the Manifesto Club, which aims to reclaim the creative spirit of the Enlightenment for the 21st century. A collection of his essays, titled A Duty To Offend, was published in August last year by Connor Court Publishing. -- Erin Watson-Lynn Erin Watson-Lynn is an academic and entrepreneur. Erin is a Lecturer in Entrepreneurship in the Faculty of Science at Monash University and her research is in the field of immigration and entrepreneurship. She is the co-founder of the not-for-profit DICE Kids and the founder of international education company Generate Worldwide. In 2016, Erin is an Australian delegate to the G20 Young Entrepreneurs' Alliance in China. In 2015 was a delegate to the G20 Youth Summit and she won the Federal Government's Policy Hack. Erin has published with the Lowy Institute for International Policy, Australian Policy Online, Women's Agenda and Startup Smart. She has appeared on ABC Radion National and KIIS FM. Erin was featured by Smart Company as one of nine female entrepreneurs to watch in 2016 and by StartCon as one of 5 female-led startups to watch in 2016.