Amanda Vanstone

Amanda Eloise Vanstone (née O'Brien; born 7 December 1952) is a former Australian politician and a former Ambassador to Italy. She was a Liberal Senator for South Australia from 1984 to 2007, and held several ministerial portfolios in the Howard Government. After her resignation from the Senate in 2007, she served as the Australian Ambassador to Italy until July 2010. Her time as Minister for Immigration was marked by controversies within the Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs.

Early life

Vanstone was born Amanda Eloise O'Brien on 7 December 1952, the youngest of four children in Adelaide, South Australia. Her father died when she was three. Her mother remarried soon afterwards, but not long after this her stepfather also died. She was educated at the St Peter's Collegiate Girls' School. Vanstone has said that she does not defer to male authority due to growing up in a female-headed household and attending a school run by women.

At the University of Adelaide, Vanstone received both Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Law degrees, as well as a Graduate Diploma in Legal Practice and a Marketing Studies Certificate from the South Australian Institute of Technology which is now the University of South Australia. In the late 1980s, she married Tony Vanstone, a commercial lawyer from Adelaide, taking his surname. Prior to entering politics, Amanda Vanstone worked as a retailer in a large department store, and later had her own business selling prints and picture-frames. She later took up a job as a legal practitioner.

Lawrence M. Krauss

Lawrence Maxwell Krauss (born 27 May 1954) is an American theoretical physicist and cosmologist who is Foundation Professor of the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University, and director of its Origins Project.

He is known as an advocate of the public understanding of science, of public policy based on sound empirical data, of scientific skepticism and of science education, and works to reduce the influence of what he opines as superstition and religious dogma in popular culture.

Krauss is the author of several bestselling books, including The Physics of Star Trek (1995) and A Universe from Nothing (2012), and chairs the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Board of Sponsors.

Biography

Early life and education

Krauss was born in New York City, but spent his childhood in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Krauss received undergraduate degrees in mathematics and physics with first class honours at Carleton University (Ottawa) in 1977, and was awarded a Ph.D. in physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1982.

Gene Robinson

Vicky Gene Robinson (born May 29, 1947 in Fayette County, Kentucky) is an American retired bishop of the Diocese of New Hampshire in the Episcopal Church in the United States of America. Robinson was elected bishop coadjutor in 2003 and succeeded as diocesan bishop in March 2004. Before becoming bishop, he served as Canon to the Ordinary to the VIII Bishop of New Hampshire.

Robinson is widely known for being the first priest in an openly gay relationship to be consecrated a bishop in a major Christian denomination believing in the historic episcopate. His sexual orientation was privately acknowledged in the 1970s, when he studied in seminary, was ordained, married, and started a family. He went public with his sexual identity and divorced in 1986. He entered a formal relationship with his second spouse, Mark Andrew, in 1988. When delegates to the Episcopal convention were voting on the ratification of his election, it became an issue of controversy. His election was ratified 62 to 45. After his election, many theologically conservative Episcopalians in the United States abandoned the Episcopal Church, formed the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) and aligned themselves with bishops outside the Episcopal Church in the United States, a process called the Anglican realignment. His story has appeared in print and film.

Fred Nile

Frederick John "Fred" Nile ED MLC (born 15 September 1934) is an Australian politician and ordained Christian minister. Nile has been a member of the New South Wales Legislative Council since 1981, except for a period in 2004 when he resigned to unsuccessfully contest the Australian Senate at the 2004 federal election. Nile was re-elected at the March 2007 state election and is currently Assistant President of the Legislative Council. He is the longest-serving member of the New South Wales parliament. In November 2009 he stated his decision to retire in 2015, but later announced his decision to accept the Christian Democratic Party (CDP) nomination for the NSW Legislative Council at the New South Wales State Election on 28 March 2015.

Early life

Nile was born in Kings Cross, New South Wales and was educated at Mascot Public and Cleveland Street High School (1940–1949). In 1952, during the Korean War, at age 17, Nile volunteered to join the National Service in 1952 and then transferred to the CMF / reserves and qualified for the rank of major, before retiring in 1972. Nile attended the NSW Congregational Theological College, the NSW United Faculty of Theology and the University of New England. He was awarded a Licentiate of Theology by the Melbourne College of Divinity.

Susan Ryan

Susan Maree Ryan AO (born 10 October 1942), an Australian educator, is the Age Discrimination Commissioner, since 2011, within the Australian Human Rights Commission.

Ryan has previously served as a Senator for the Australian Capital Territory between 1975 and 1987, representing the Australian Labor Party. During her term in the Parliament of Australia, Ryan served in several ministerial roles in the Hawke government; and most notably as the inaugural Minister assisting the Prime Minister for the Status of Women. Her legislative contributions to the Australian political landscape include the Sex Discrimination Act, 1984 (Cth) and the Affirmative Action (Equal Opportunities in Employment) Act 1986 (Cth).

Background

Ryan was born in Sydney and educated at the Brigidine Convent in Maroubra. She graduated from the University of Sydney in 1962 with a Bachelor of Arts and worked as a school teacher. She married Richard Butler in 1963 and they have one son and one daughter—they divorced in 1972. From 1966 she was a residence officer at the Australian National University in Canberra while studying and tutoring in English literature. In 1969 she helped to establish the Labor Club in Belconnen. She graduated with a Master of Arts in English Literature from the ANU in 1972. Following graduation she served as a delegate to the ACT Australian Labor Party from 1973 to 1976.