Renewables, Welfare and Body Image

Panellists: Christian Porter, Minister for Social Services; Mark Butler, Shadow Minister for Climate Change and Energy; Marina Go, Media executive and author; Eva Cox, Author & social analyst; and Trisha Jha, Centre for Independent Studies. -- Christian Porter Christian Porter is the Minister for Social Services and represents the electorate of Pearce in WA, which he won at the 2013 election. Before entering Parliament, Christian was a senior member of the WA State Government, serving in the portfolios of Attorney-General, Minister for Corrective Services and Treasurer. His department is responsible for the payment of all pensions and welfare benefits, with a budget in 2016-17 of nearly $160 billion. His department also administers the National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children, and around $60 million of measures under the Women’s Safety Package announced by the Prime Minister last year. As WA Treasurer, Christian delivered successive budget surpluses in Australia’s fastest-growing economy and budgeted for the provision of $600 million to revitalise WA’s not-for-profit sector. Christian was also responsible for the largest infrastructure program in WA’s history and was the architect of the $1 billion WA Future Fund. He holds a Bachelor of Economics, a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and a Bachelor of Laws from the University of WA, as well as a Master of Science (Political Theory) from the London School of Economics. Prior to politics, Christian worked as a lawyer in both the commercial and government settings. He began his career at Clayton Utz and later worked as a senior State prosecutor for the Director of Public Prosecutions. Christian has also lectured at Edith Cowan University and the University of WA in law, public policy and economics. Immediately before entering Federal Parliament, Christian was the Professor of Law at Curtin University. Christian was born and raised in WA. He and his wife Jennifer live in Yanchep, in the northern part of the Pearce electorate. -- Mark Butler Mark Butler is the Shadow Minister for Climate Change and Energy. He was elected to Parliament in 2007 representing the South Australian seat of Port Adelaide and has held a range of portfolios including Health, Social Inclusion, Housing and Homelessness, and Environment. In 2015 Mark was elected national president of the ALP. A minister in the Labor government from 2010-13, Mark held a range of portfolios before being appointed Environment Minister when Kevin Rudd returned to the leadership two months before the 2013 election. Mark was born in Canberra in 1970. He has three tertiary degrees – in Arts, Law and a Masters in International Relations – and worked for 15 years for the Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Union. For 11 years he was the union’s South Australian State Secretary. In 1997-98 Mark was the youngest ever State President of the South Australian ALP. He has been a member of the party’s national executive since 2000. Mark, who is married with two children, lives in the suburb of Woodville and is a keen supporter of the Port Power AFL team. -- Marina Go Marina Go is the general manager of magazine company Hearst Australia and publisher of the young women’s magazine group at Bauer Media. She is also Chair of the Wests Tigers rugby league club and author of the business book for women, Break Through: 20 Success Strategies for Female Leaders. She was previously CEO of Private Media and founder of the career women’s website Women’s Agenda. Boss magazine named her as one of 20 True Leaders of 2016. Marina has over 25 years of leadership experience in the media industry, having started her career as a journalist. She was appointed editor of Dolly magazine at the age of 23, before spending the next decade editing and directing a number of leading women's magazines, including Australian Good Taste, ELLE and Sunday Life. She crossed to the business side of the media industry 15 years ago, holding leadership roles at Fairfax and Pacific, before making the move to digital in 2008, where she published, launched and relaunched news, lifestyle and business websites including Crikey, The Mandarin, Smart Company, The Knot and Primped. She is a non-executive director of digital startups Daily Siren and Stylematch, and also a member of the Advisory Boards of the Walkley Foundation, The Australian Republican Movement and Women’s Agenda. She is a former director of Netball Australia, Odyssey House, Sydney Symphony Vanguard and The Apparel Group. She lectures on digital media at the University of Technology, Sydney, is a mentor with the Women in Media and NRL Women programs and a UNSW Alumni Leader and Ambassador. She has an MBA from the Australian Graduate School of Management and a BA (Mass Communications) from Macquarie University. She is a mother of two young men and passionate about diversity and equality. -- Eva Cox Eva Cox is an influential Australian feminist and author. Her 1996 book Leading Women looked at power in relation to gender and why women who make a difference are labelled as difficult – a label she wears with pride. She has been an academic, political adviser and public servant, and now runs a small research and policy consultancy. She also writes for Crikey and The Conversation. She was born Eva Hauser in Vienna in 1938, into a Jewish family that was soon declared stateless by the Nazi regime. She grew up as a refugee in England, Italy and then Australia from age 10. Eva is an unabashed feminist and passionately promotes inclusive, diverse and equitable ways of living together. She was the 1995 ABC Boyer lecturer on the subject of making societies more civil. A sociologist by trade, Eva promotes ideas widely and eclectically in books, on line, in journals and other media. Eva has been recognised in various ways: Australian Humanist of the Year, a Distinguished Alumnus at UNSW and an Edna Grand Stirrer award. She also a Fellow of the Centre for Policy Development and as a Research Fellow at Jumbunna Indigenous House of Learning (UTS). In 2011 Eva featured on a series of postage stamps celebrating eminent Australian women, the others being Germaine Greer, Anne Summers and Elizabeth Evatt. -- Trisha Jha Trisha Jha is a policy analyst in the Social Foundations Program at the Centre for Independent Studies. Her research specialises in policy relating to family payments, childcare and education. She is actively involved in Australia’s small but growing libertarian community. Trisha joined the Centre for Independent Studies in August 2013. Some of her reports include Complex Family Payments: What it Costs the Village to Raise a Child, Regulating for Quality in Childcare: The Evidence Base and One School Does Not Fit All. Forthcoming research will be primarily on education and schools policy. Trisha holds a Bachelor of Arts in International Relations from the Australian National University. She has a strong interest in classical liberal ideas, particularly in free speech and freedom of expression, and other civil liberties issues. Besides her areas of policy expertise Trisha engages in discussions on the issues of the day across a variety of publications and media.