Malcolm Bligh Turnbull (born 24 October 1954) is an Australian politician. He has been a member of the Australian House of Representatives since 2004, and was Leader of the Opposition and parliamentary leader of the Liberal Party from 16 September 2008 to 1 December 2009. He currently serves as the Shadow Minister for Communications and Broadband.

Turnbull has represented the Division of Wentworth in Sydney's eastern suburbs since his election in October 2004. He served as the federal Minister for Environment and Water Resources in 2007. Before entering parliamentary politics he practised as a journalist, barrister, company legal counsel, and merchant banker, and was leader of the Australian Republican Movement.

In September 2008, Turnbull was chosen Liberal Party leader and Leader of the Opposition. He served for a little over a year. In November 2009, he ordered the Liberal Party to support the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme proposed by the Labor government. This prompted substantial opposition in the party, and Turnbull was voted out of his leadership post on 1 December.

Kevin Michael Rudd (born 21 September 1957) is an Australian politician who was the 26th Prime Minister of Australia from 2007 to 2010. He also served as the Minister for Foreign Affairs from 2010 to 2012. A member of the Australian Labor Party, Rudd has served in the House of Representatives since the 1998 federal election, representing Griffith, Queensland.

Rudd was born in Queensland and grew up on a dairy farm. He joined the Australian Labor Party at the age of 15 and was dux of Nambour State High School in 1974. He studied an arts degree in Asian studies at the Australian National University, majoring in Chinese language and Chinese history. In 1981, he married Thérèse Rein and they have three children. He worked for the Department of Foreign Affairs from 1981 and from 1988 he was Chief of Staff to the Queensland Labor Opposition Leader and later Premier, Wayne Goss. After the Goss government lost office in 1995, Rudd was hired as a Senior China Consultant by the accounting firm KPMG Australia.