 Speaker Biographies
Hon Peter Dutton MP, Minister for Defence, Australian Parliament
Peter Dutton is the Member for Dickson and Minister for Defence.
Minister Dutton was sworn in as the Minister for Defence on 30 March 2021.
Peter has been a member of the National Security Committee of Cabinet for 6 years. He is also a member of the Expenditure Review Committee and the Prime Minister’s leadership team.
Previously, he served as the inaugural Home Affairs Minister in its modern form from December 2017, with responsibility for the Australian Federal Police, Australian Border Force, Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission and the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre.
Peter has also previously served as the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection from December 2014 until August 2018 overseeing Operation Sovereign Borders – stopping the boats, getting every child out of detention, closing the Manus Regional Processing Centre and overseeing the special intake of 12,000 refugees from the Syria and Iraq conflicts.
Prior to that appointment, Peter was Minister for Health and Minister for Sport from September 2013 establishing the $20 billion Medical Research Future Fund.
Peter is married to Kirilly and is the proud father of Rebecca, Harry and Tom and lives in Dayboro in the Dickson electorate.
First elected to the Australian Parliament as the Member for Dickson in November 2001 at age 30, Peter became one of the youngest Ministers since Federation when appointed to the Ministry by Prime Minister John Howard in 2004.
In January 2006, he was promoted to Minister for Revenue and Assistant Treasurer.
Whilst in Opposition between 2008 and 2013, Peter served as Shadow Minister for Finance, Competition Policy and Deregulation and Shadow Minister for Health and Ageing.
Before his election to Parliament, Peter was a successful small businessman and employed a staff of 40.
Peter also served as a Queensland Police Officer for a decade and worked in the National Crime Authority and Drug and Sex Offenders’ Squads.
The Hon Mike Gallagher, Representing the 8th District of Wisconsin, US House of Representatives
Congressman Mike Gallagher is a 7th generation Wisconsin native and represents Wisconsin’s 8th District in the U.S. House of Representatives. He joined the United States Marine Corps the day he graduated from college and served for seven years on active duty as a Counterintelligence/Human Intelligence Officer and Regional Affairs Officer for the Middle East/North Africa, where he deployed twice to Al Anbar Province, Iraq as a commander of intelligence teams.
Mike currently serves on the House Armed Services Committee as the Ranking Member of the Military Personnel subcommittee, the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, and as co-chair of the Cyberspace Solarium Commission.
(Senator) Stephen Loosley AM, Former ALP National President and Senator
(Senator) Stephen Loosley served in the Australian Parliament during the Hawke and Keating Governments (1990-1995), where he chaired both the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade and the Senate Regulations Committee.
Prior to his Senate service, Stephen was the General Secretary of the NSW Branch of the Australian Labor Party (1983–90). He also served a term as ALP National President (1991–92).
Stephen Loosley is now the Deputy Chair of Thales (Australia). He has served as Chair of the Woomera Prohibited Area Advisory Board and is a Director of O’Connell Street Associates. Stephen is the immediate past chair of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, where he is now a Senior Fellow. Also, in 2017, Stephen accepted an invitation to join The United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney as a Visiting Fellow.
In addition, Stephen serves as a Corporate Councillor of the Asia Society (Australia) and on the Board of the European Australian Business Council (EABC). He has also served on the Board of CoverMore Travel Insurance (2013-2016), the Advisory Boards of Veolia (Australia/NZ) and Crescent Capital and on the Board of the Australian-American Leadership Dialogue, along with the Ethics Centre.
Stephen holds First Class Honours degrees in Politics (UNSW, 1976) and Law (UTS, 1997). His first book, Machine Rules, was published by Melbourne University Press in August 2015. He was recently appointed as a Fellow of the Royal Society of NSW.
Stephen is a member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (London) and a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors (Sydney). He is a commentator on US politics and writes for The Australian, The Australian Financial Review and The Spectator (Australia) and is the Book and Film Editor for The Strategist, Canberra.
On Australia Day 2015, Stephen was awarded an AM for services to the Parliament and to public policy.
Michael Goldman, Chargé d’Affaires, US Embassy Canberra
Mike Goldman arrived in Canberra in March 2020, after three years at the U.S Embassy in Suva, Fiji, where he served as Charge d’Affaires (2018-2019) and DCM (2017). A career member of the Senior Foreign Service, Mike joined the State Department in 2000. He recently served in Washington as Deputy and Acting Director for China and Mongolia in the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs (2015-2017). Previous assignments include Kathmandu (2012-2015), where he was Political and Economic Counselor; Hanoi (2008-2011) and Tashkent (2002-2005) as a political officer; and Taipei (2000-2002) as a consular officer, as well as an earlier stint on the China Desk (2005-2007). He’s the recipient of several State Department honors, including recognition as the Department’s outstanding human rights officer for his work to combat torture and safeguard vulnerable NGOs in Uzbekistan.
Prior to joining the Foreign Service, Mike worked as a dock worker on an oyster farm in Washington State’s Puget Sound and as an adjunct professor of political science at San Francisco State University.
Mike earned a Ph.D. and MA in political science from the University of California, Berkeley and an undergraduate degree in international politics from Georgetown University. He completed his dissertation research on a Fulbright scholarship at the Univesiti Sains Malaysia in Penang, Malaysia and has studied at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Taiwan Normal University, and the State University of Makassar in Ujung Pandang, Indonesia.
Mike speaks Mandarin Chinese, and at one time or another has also been fluent in Nepali, Vietnamese, Russian, and Indonesian. He has three children and is married to USAID Foreign Service Officer Brett Jones.
Dr Kori Schake, Senior Fellow and Director of Foreign and Defense Policy studies, American Enterprise Institute (AEI)
Dr Kori Schake is a senior fellow and the director of foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI).
Before joining AEI, Dr. Schake was the deputy director-general of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. She has had a distinguished career in government, working at the US State Department, the US Department of Defense, and the National Security Council at the White House. She has also taught at Stanford, West Point, Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, National Defense University, and the University of Maryland.
Dr. Schake is the author of five books, among them “America vs the West: Can the Liberal World Order Be Preserved?” (Penguin Random House Australia, Lowy Institute, 2018); “Safe Passage: The Transition from British to American Hegemony” (Harvard University Press, 2017); “State of Disrepair: Fixing the Culture and Practices of the State Department” (Hoover Institution Press, 2012); and “Managing American Hegemony: Essays on Power in a Time of Dominance” (Hoover Institution Press, 2009).
She is also the coeditor, along with former Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, of “Warriors & Citizens: American Views of Our Military” (Hoover Institution Press, 2016).
Dr. Schake has been widely published in policy journals and the popular press, including in CNN.com, Foreign Affairs, Politico, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post. She is a contributing writer at The Atlantic and War on the Rocks.
Dr. Schake has a PhD and MA in government and politics from the University of Maryland, as well as an MPM from the University of Maryland School of Public Policy. Her BA in international relations is from Stanford University.
The Hon Andrew Hastie MP, Assistant Minister for Defence, Australian Parliament
Assistant Minister Andrew Hastie MP is a member of the Australian Parliament, representing the electorate of Canning in the House of Representatives.
Hastie completed a Bachelor of Arts (Hons) in History and Philosophy through the University of New South Wales at the Australian Defence Force Academy. In 2006, he graduated officer training at the Royal Military College, Duntroon.
In 2009, Hastie deployed to Afghanistan as a Cavalry Troop Leader. In 2010, he was selected for service with the Special Air Service Regiment (SASR) as a Troop Commander, taking commands in maritime and special reconnaissance capabilities. He deployed to Afghanistan again in 2013 as a Troop Commander with the Australian Special Operations Task Group. During his service with the SASR, he deployed to various theatres in the Middle East and Indo-Pacific.
Hastie resigned from the ADF in 2015 to successfully contest the Canning by-election for the Liberal Party of Australia. He was re-elected in the general elections of 2016 and 2019.
From January 2017 to December 2020 Hastie has served as Chair of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security. His work in this capacity focused on national security, including counter-terrorism, espionage and foreign interference.
Hastie was sworn in as the Morrison Government’s Assistant Minister for Defence on 22 December 2020.
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