Mathias Hubert Paul Cormann (German pronunciation: [maˈtiːas ˈkɔʁman], English: /məˈtiːəs ˈkɔrmən/; born 20 September 1970) is an Australian politician. He is a Liberal Party of Australia Senator for Western Australia, having been chosen by the Parliament of Western Australia on 19 June 2007 to fill the casual vacancy caused by the resignation of Senator Ian Campbell. On 8 December 2009 he was appointed Shadow Minister for Employment Participation, Apprenticeships and Training and on 14 September 2010 (after the 2010 election) he was appointed Shadow Assistant Treasurer and Shadow Minister for Financial Services and Superannuation.

Born in Eupen, Belgium, Cormann migrated to Perth, Western Australia in 1996. He earned a Belgian law degree from the Flemish Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, and it was not until he was 23, when he studied Law at the University of East Anglia in England, that he actually first learnt how to speak English. As his degree was not recognised in Australia, he took a job as a gardener at Presbyterian Ladies' College. He joined the Liberal Party in Western Australia and took on a job as ministerial chief-of-staff, then senior adviser to then-Premier of Western Australia, Richard Court. He then moved to federal politics, working for two years as a senior adviser to then Minister for Justice and Customs Chris Ellison. Between 2003 and 2008 Cormann was the state senior vice-president of the Liberal Party in Western Australia. He was also acting general manager of HBF, a WA-based health insurance company, until resigning in May 2007 to contest a Senate seat.

Penelope "Penny" Ying-yen Wong (born 5 November 1968), an Australian senator representing South Australia, is the Commonwealth Minister for Finance and Deregulation. Wong is a member of the Labor Party and member of the Australian federal cabinet.

Wong was the first Australian Minister for Climate Change and Water. Her appointment was amended on 26 February 2010, by the Prime Minister, to the Minister for Climate Change, Energy Efficiency and Water. This change in the Government's cabinet was brought about by the controversy of the Home Insulation Program (HIP). On 13 September 2010, she was sworn in as Minister for Finance and Deregulation in the Gillard Labor cabinet. She has been a member of the Australian Senate since 2002, representing South Australia.

Wong is the first openly lesbian member of the cabinet, and the first Asian-born federal minister. Before entering Parliament, Penny Wong was a barrister and solicitor in Adelaide and an adviser to the Carr Government in New South Wales.

Joseph Benedict "Joe" Hockey (born 2 August 1965), is an Australian politician and member of the Australian House of Representatives, representing the Division of North Sydney for the Liberal Party of Australia since 1996.

Hockey was a Minister in the Howard Government and is currently the Shadow Treasurer under Opposition Leader Tony Abbott in the Liberal/National Coalition.

Hockey was born in North Sydney as the youngest of four children. His father, Richard Hockey was born in Bethlehem (then in the British Mandate of Palestine) and migrated to Australia in 1948. Hockey is of Armenian and Palestinian background and the family name was originally Hokeidonian. Hockey attended St Aloysius' College in Milson's Point and the University of Sydney, residing at St John's College, where he graduated with degrees in Arts and Law. While at university he was President of the Student Representative Council. He was a banking and finance lawyer, and Director of Policy to the Premier of New South Wales, before entering politics.

Sam Henderson (born October 18, 1969, in Woodstock, New York) is an American cartoonist, writer and expert on American comedy history.

Henderson attended Boiceville, New York's Onteora High School, graduating in 1987, and the School of Visual Arts in New York City, where he graduated in 1991.

Henderson has been self-publishing xeroxed minicomics since 1980. In the mid-to-late 1980s he drew and published a comic called Captain Spaz with his friend Bobby Weiss. The series ended in 1988 as he was busy in college. In college, he drew a series of minicomics featuring a character known as Monroe Simmons. In 1993 he began self-publishing his best-known title, The Magic Whistle, now published by Alternative Comics. Also in 1993 he began the wordless comic strip "Scene but Not Heard," starring a pink man and a red bear, in Nickelodeon Magazine. It was the magazine's longest-running comic strip. A collection is due out in 2010.

In their review of Magic Whistle: Bigger, Larger and Bigger! the San Antonio Express-News wrote that Henderson's "crude, blobby little scratchings are some of the funniest junk being turned out." Henderson was nominated for the Harvey Award's Special Award for Humor every year from 1999-2004.

Arthur Sinodinos AO (born 25 February 1957 in Newcastle, New South Wales) is an Australian politician, banker and former public servant. He is a graduate of the University of Newcastle having graduated in 1979 with a Bachelor of Commerce (Honours in Economics).

He was the Chief of Staff to the then Prime Minister of Australia John Howard from 1997 to 2006, after serving with him previously from 1987 to 1989 when he was Opposition Leader and rejoining him in 1995. As a close confidant of the Prime Minister, he was regarded as one of the most powerful people in the country. He left to become an investment banking director with the bank Goldman Sachs JBWere, and became the Regional General Manager, Business and Private Bank at National Australia Bank. In 2008, he was part of a panel that mediated public input into the Defence White Paper.

Sinodinos was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia in 2008. In March 2009, he was appointed Managing Director for Government, Education and Carbon Solutions, Institutional Banking, Business Banking Australia at the National Australia Bank.