Andrew Bolt (born 26 September 1959 in Adelaide, South Australia) is an Australian journalist,newspaper columnist, radio commentator, blogger and television host. Bolt is a columnist and associate editor of the Melbourne-based Herald Sun. He has appeared on the Nine Network, Melbourne Talk Radio, ABC Television, Network Ten and local radio. In 2005, Bolt released a compilation of newspaper columns in a book titled The Best of Andrew Bolt—Still Not Sorry. From 2011, he has hosted The Bolt Report on Network Ten.

Bolt is a self-described "conservative" but rejects the label "right-wing".

Born to newly-arrived Dutch migrants, Bolt spent his childhood in remote rural areas such as Tarcoola, South Australia, while his father worked as a schoolteacher and principal. After completing secondary school, Bolt travelled and worked overseas before returning to Australia and starting an Arts degree at the University of Adelaide. After "one of the worst years of [his] life" he left university to take up a cadetship at The Age, a Melbourne broadsheet newspaper. He worked for The Age in various roles, including as a sports writer, prior to joining The Herald, which in 1990 merged with The Sun News-Pictorial to form the Herald Sun. His time as a reporter included a stint as the newspaper's Asia correspondent, based first in Hong Kong and later in Bangkok.

Edward Gough Whitlam, AC, QC (born 11 July 1916), known as Gough Whitlam ( /ˈɡɒf ˈwɪtləm/ GOFF WIT-ləm), served as the 21st Prime Minister of Australia. Whitlam led the Australian Labor Party (ALP) to power at the 1972 election and retained government at the 1974 election, before being dismissed by Governor-General Sir John Kerr at the climax of the 1975 Australian constitutional crisis. Whitlam remains the only Prime Minister to have his commission terminated in that manner.

Whitlam entered Parliament in 1952, as an ALP member of the House of Representatives. In 1960 he was elected deputy leader of the ALP and in 1967, after party leader Arthur Calwell retired, he assumed the leadership and became Leader of the Opposition. After narrowly losing the 1969 election, Whitlam led Labor to victory at the 1972 election after 23 years of Liberal-Country Coalition government.

In his time in office, Whitlam and his government implemented a large number of new programs and policy changes, including the elimination of military conscription and criminal execution, institution of universal health care and fee-free tertiary schooling (university), and the implementation of legal aid programs. He won the 1974 election with a reduced majority. Subsequently, the Opposition, which controlled the Senate, was emboldened by government scandals and a flagging economy to challenge Whitlam. In late 1975, there was a weeks-long deadlock over the passage of appropriation bills, which was resolved by Kerr's dismissal of Whitlam and commissioning of Opposition leader Malcolm Fraser as caretaker Prime Minister. Labor lost the subsequent 1975 election in a landslide.

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.