Guns, Diversity and Donations

Panellists: Bridget McKenzie, National Party Senator for Victoria; Doug Cameron, Shadow Minister for Human Services; Larissa Waters, Queensland Greens Senator; Rowan Dean, Editor, Spectator Australia; and Dai Le, Founder, Diverse Australasian Women’s Network. -- Bridget McKenzie Bridget McKenzie entered the Senate in 2011 as a Victorian representative of the National Party. She grew up in Victoria with the traditional rural influences of small business, agriculture and sport, and is a keen hunter and shooter. A strong advocate for gun owners, Bridget is co-chair of the Parliamentary Friends of Shooting and last year organised a clay-pigeon shooting day for members of the Canberra Press Gallery. Bridget has a degree in applied science (human movement) from Deakin University and from 2005-09 worked as a mathematics and phys. ed. teacher. From 2009-10 she was a lecturer in Monash University’s education faculty. Bridget believes that strong regional economies and secure regional communities are critical to the future prosperity of Australia, and that small business is the backbone of many regional communities. -- Doug Cameron Doug Cameron has been an ALP Senator since 2007, coming to Parliament after a lifetime in the union movement. Doug's no-holds-barred style brought him to national prominence as national secretary of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union, when he was at the forefront of trade union opposition to the Howard government's industrial relations legislation. Previously Shadow Minister for Human Services, Doug was moved the Housing and Homelessness portfolio in the reshuffle that followed the July election. Doug was born in Scotland in 1951. -- Larissa Waters Larissa Waters became the first Queensland Senate representative for the Australian Greens in the 2010 federal election, having narrowly missed out in 2007. Larissa is an environmental lawyer. Before entering Parliament she worked in the community sector for eight years advising people how to use the law to protect the environment. She is passionate about human rights, protecting the environment and public participation and accountability in government. As a Co-Deputy Leader of the Australian Greens, her chief policy areas of responsibility include climate change, environment, mining and women. Larissa lives in Brisbane with her daughter. -- Rowan Dean Rowan Dean is editor of The Spectator Australia. He has a background in advertising copywriting which includes launching Fosters Lager and Paul Hogan into the United Kingdom and co-writing a British TV commercial for Hamlet cigars twice voted one of the world’s best ads. He is an award-winning film director as well as former Executive Creative Director on many of Australia's best-known brands. He has become familiar to Australian audiences as a panellist on the ABC’s The Gruen Transfer and The Drum, and as a columnist with The Australian Financial Review. Last year he published Beyond Satire, a selection of satirical and other political columns. Rowan was born in Canberra, educated in France, Germany, Britain and Australia, and speaks French and German. -- Dai Le Dai Le is a former award-winning journalist, film-maker and broadcaster with the ABC. In 2008 she stepped into the world of politics standing as a Liberal candidate in the NSW State seat of Cabramatta where she caused historic swings turning it into a marginal seat. In September 2012 Dai was elected to Fairfield City Council and was recently suspended by the Liberal Party for ten years for running on an independent ticket for mayor against the Liberal candidate. She is passionate about increased representation of Asian Australian and culturally diverse men and women in mainstream institutions and was named an Australian Financial Review - Westpac Top 100 Women of Influence in 2014. Dai is the Founder of DAWN (Diverse Australasian Women’s Network), an organisation that champion diverse leadership beyond gender. DAWN’s vision is to expand culturally diverse leadership across our mainstream institutions. DAWN started a signature series of Asian Australian Leadership Conversations in partnership with the Ethics Centre and the Asian Australian Lawyers Association to explore the whole notion of leadership, and the barriers and opportunities for Australians of culturally diverse backgrounds. She is currently on the Advisory Board of Multicultural NSW, Global Sisters (a not-for-profit start-up that focuses on building economic independence among migrant and refugee women) and STARTTs - the NSW Service for the Treatment and Rehabilitation of Torture and Trauma Survivors. Dai was born in Vietnam in Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City) and after South Vietnam was defeated in the Vietnam war she spent years in refugee camps in South-East Asia before being accepted for resettlement in Australia, arriving with her mother and two younger sisters in December 1979. She is also a breast cancer survivor.