Patrons of the Labor Environment Action Network

The Hon. Mike Rann MP, Premier of South Australia

Labor’s Mike Rann became South Australia’s 44th Premier after the State election in March 2002 and was re-elected with an increased majority in March 2006.

As well as his duties as Premier, Mr Rann has assumed the portfolios of Economic Development, Social Inclusion, the Arts, and Sustainability and Climate Change.

In 2008 he was National President of the Australian Labor Party and is currently Vice President. In 2006-2007 Mr Rann was Chair of the Council for the Australian Federation. He was first elected to the South Australian Parliament in 1985 as the Member for Briggs, later Ramsay.

The Hon. Kristina Keneally MP, Premier of New South Wales

Kristina Keneally MP is the Member for Heffron in the New South Wales Parliament and Premier of New South Wales.

Kristina is New South Wales' first female premier. As Planning Minister, Kristina’s focus was urban renewal, land supply and supporting the Government’s commitments to deliver jobs closer to home. She leads the Government’s major projects, such as urban renewal in Redfern and Waterloo , and the development of the 22ha waterfront precinct in Sydney ’s CBD, Barangaroo.

Kristina's passion for appropriate land use planning and sustainable development comes from her work representing Heffron, an inner city area undergoing significant urban renewal. When Jenny McAllister suggested to Kristina that they work on creating a cross-factional movement in the ALP to promote policy development and party activism on environmental issues, Kristina enthusiastically agreed. Together, and with a small group of other rank & file members, they conceived of the LEAN and supported its early events and campaigns.

Kristina is proud to serve with Jenny and all the LEAN patrons. She is most proud of the way in which those who have taken the LEAN forward have pioneered new ways of engaging the party membership, leading the party's policy thinking and affecting change for a sustainable future.

Jenny McAllister, Deputy National President, Australian Labor Party

Jenny McAllister is the Deputy National President of the Australian Labor Party. Under the national rotating system, Jenny will be National President from July 2011.

Jenny co-founded the Labor Environment Action Network with Kristina Keneally in New South Wales.

The Hon. Prof. John Thwaites, former Deputy Premier of Victoria and Minister for Environment

John Thwaites is a Professorial Fellow, Monash University, and Chair of ClimateWorks Australia and the Monash Sustainability Institute. He is a consultant at Maddocks Solicitors providing advice to the firm and its clients on climate change, water, sustainability and corporate social responsibility. He also chairs the Climate Group Ltd in Australia, the Peter Cullen Water and Environment Trust, and the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, Australia’s only cultural centre dedicated to film, TV, games and the moving image. He is also a director of the Australian Green Building Council.

John is currently working with the Brotherhood of St Laurence to develop policies to assist low-income Australians cope with the impact of climate change and is chairing a joint Brotherhood of St Laurence/KPMG Report on a national energy efficiency program for low income households. John is a special adviser to the Timor-Leste Minister for Infrastructure and is working on an AusAid program to develop an Infrastructure plan for Timor-Leste. He was an invited participant at the Australia2020 Summit and the Victorian Climate Change Summit. He has advised state and local governments on climate change and energy policy.

John Thwaites was Deputy Premier of Victoria from 1999 until his retirement in 2007. During this period he was Minister for Health, Minister for Planning, Minister for Environment, Minister for Water, Minister for Victorian Communities and Victoria’s first Minister for Climate Change. In these portfolios he was responsible for major reforms in social policy, health, environment and water.

The Hon. Kelvin Thompson MP, Federal Member for Wills, Victoria

Kelvin was born in Coburg in 1955 and went to school at Pascoe Vale North Primary School, later winning a scholarship to Essendon Grammar School. He has first class honours degrees in Arts and Law (winner of the Supreme Court Prize 1987) from the University of Melbourne.

He joined the ALP in 1975. He was elected as a Coburg councillor in 1981 and served two terms as deputy mayor until 1988 when he was elected to the Victorian Parliament as the Member for Pascoe Vale He was re-elected in 1992 and served in the Shadow Cabinet from 1992-1994.

In 1996 he was elected to the Federal Parliament as the Member for Wills. From 1998 to March 2007 Kelvin served in a range of Shadow Ministries, including Assistant Treasurer, Environment and Heritage, Regional Development, Roads and Housing, Public Accountability, Human Services and Attorney General.

The Hon. Tom Uren AO, former Federal Minister for Urban and Regional Development

Tom Uren, "the conscience of Parliament", is one of the best-known and most-respected Labor politicians of his generation. As a minister in two governments he knew what it was like to hold the reins of power, yet he never lost the sense of justice and fair play that has driven him through an eventful life.

Born in the working class suburb of Balmain in the 1920s, Uren encountered the poverty of the Depression first-hand with an unemployed father and a mother who worked as a barmaid.

Uren's response was to fight, literally-he trained as a boxer and had hopes of pursuing a career as a professional fighter, but his plans were derailed by the outbreak of World War Two. Uren enlisted and was sent to Timor where, fighting against overwhelming odds, he and his comrades were taken prisoner.

The following dark years saw him suffer the brutality of the Burma-Thai Railway, then a spell in Japan itself. It was this later period that formed his undying belief that it was militarism and not the Japanese people who were to blame for the war and its terrible atrocities. His wartime experiences instilled in him a lifelong opposition to militarism and fascism and a belief in socialism and peaceful co-existence.

Returning home at war's end, Uren aimed to go back into the fight game but after a decisive defeat in England, he gave up the idea. He went to work as a manager at Woolworths and at the same time joined the Australian Labor Party. His energy and commitment quickly took him to the top of the Left faction of the party. Uren entered Federal Parliament in 1958.

With the election of the Whitlam Government in 1972, he became Minister for Urban and Regional Development and initiated many reforms, saving suburbs from freeways and redevelopment and creating new national parks. In 1975 he set up the Australian Heritage Commission and the National Estate.

After serving a second term of office as a minister in the Hawke Government, Uren retired from politics in 1990. He published his highly acclaimed biography Straight Left in 1994.

The Hon. Dr. Moss Cass, former Federal Minister for Environment

The first Federal Minister for the Environment (1972-75), Dr Cass is currently President of the Australian National Biocentre Inc and the convenor of the Scientists and Engineers Network for a Sustainable Environment (SENSE). Before entering politics Dr Cass was a medical practitioner (1950-69) at the Royal Children's Hospital of Melbourne.

In 1969 he entered Federal Parliament (1969-83), during which time he was Federal Minister for the Environment from 1972-75 and for Media (1975).

The Hon. Dr. Sally Talbot MP, Shadow Minister for Environment, Western Australia

Elected to Western Australia's Parliament in 2005 and re-elected in 2007, Dr Talbot is Shadow Minister for Environment, Lands and Youth. She is the Member for the South West Region.

Andrew McNamara, former Minister for Sustainability, Climate Change and Innovation, Queensland

Andrew McNamara served three terms in the Queensland Parliament as Member for Hervey Bay between 2001 and 2009 and was Minister for Sustainability, Climate Change and Innovation in the previous term of the Bligh Government. Prior to going into politics Andrew was a solicitor. He is one of Australia’s leading advocates on the likelihood of peaking world oil supplies and in 2005 came to national prominence as the first mainstream Australian politician to speak out on the issue. He is the Patron of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas in Australia.

During his political career, Andrew was a member of Australia’s delegation to the Bali Round of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Chair of the Queensland Government's Oil Vulnerability Taskforce and Deputy Chair of the Premier’s Climate Change Council which included a number of prominent environmentalists and business leaders including Dr Tim Flannery and Professor Ian Lowe.

During his time as Minister responsible for the then Environmental Protection Agency, Andrew was responsible for many environmental initiatives, including increasing Queensland’s National Park Target from 5% to 7.5% by 2020, the implementation of the Moreton Bay Marine Park which increased protected no-take areas from .5% to 16%, the move to regulate runoff onto the Great Barrier Reef and energy saving programs such as the Solar Homes Scheme and Climate Smart Homes.

Molly Robson, former Minister for Environment and Heritage, Queensland

Molly Robson was elected the Member for Springwood in the Parliament of Queensland in 1989 and remained in the seat until 1995. During her period in parliament she held the ministerial portfolio of Environment and Heritage from September 1992 until July 1995.