Rita Panahi

Rita Panahi was born in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, United States, the child of Iranian parents. Her mother was a midwife and her father was an agricultural engineer. The family returned to Iran during her infancy, living on the coast and moving to Tehran by 1979. Her mother worked for a hospital associated with the Shah during the Iranian Revolution.[1]

Panahi described her parents as "relaxed Muslims who were not particularly political". However, her family was targeted by the repressive Islamic regime of the Ayatollah Khomeini. In 1984, they were accepted by Australia as refugees and lived in Melbourne.[1]

Panahi worked in banking while attending Monash University, studying but not completing a Bachelor of Business Finance. She joined Australian Young Labor and volunteered in the 1996 election campaign. Panahi worked as a personal banker at Colonial Mutual and was the youngest branch manager in the company's history.[1] She has a child with an undisclosed father and is a single parent at present.[1]

Panahi initially wrote for the daily free commuter newspaper mX, writing a weekly sports gossip column. Her column was picked up for a second year and by 2007 she was a regular guest on the AM sports radio station SEN. She earned her MBA from Swinburne. In September 2007, Panahi began working for the Herald Sun, published by the Herald and Weekly Times (HWT), a subsidiary of News Corp Australia.[1] Panahi is also a regular guest on Sky News and Sunrise on the Seven Network. She is also a radio commentator on 3AW and 2GB.[1]

Panahi is described as a conservative. However, she has argued against the burqa but opposes banning it. She criticises aspects of Islam, but opposes a ban on Muslim immigration. She supports offshore detention camps for illegal immigrants, while also supporting asylum seekers who arrive to Australia by boat.[1]

She has been described as 'surprisingly' progressive on some social issues. Writing for SBS, Margaret Simons observed that Panahi hates homophobia and has argued in favour of women choosing single motherhood, as she has.[1]

In January 2015, Panahi sparred with Andrew O'Keefe on Weekend Sunrise over Islamic extremists. She said “We’ve got to stop ... pretending like Islam is like any other religion as far as being behind incidences of terror” and “if you value the rights of women you’d have issues with the burqa”.[2]

In January 2015, Panahi wrote an article entitled ‘Islam, you have a very serious problem’ which was published in the ‘’Daily Telegraph’’. News website New Matilda published an open letter critical of Panahi’s article.[3]

In a debate over racism in early 2016, Panahi was on a team opposing ABC presenter Stan Grant. Panahi argued that Australia should not be characterised as racist.[1]

In January 2017, Panahi was encouraged by Michael Kroger to stand for Liberal Party pre-selection in the Victorian state electorate of Frankston.[4]

In March 2018, Panahi began hosting The Friday Show on Sky News Live.[5]

• Rita Panahi's column in the Herald Sun
• Rita Panahi on The Rubin Report
• Rita Panahi on Twitter