On Saturday 31 May, 110 lucky people had Dinner with Lisa Millar at the Somers Yacht Club.
The occasion was the launch of the Western Port Writes 2026 festival year, and what a brilliant night it was.
Guests enjoyed a feast of food while listening to a warm, entertaining conversation between the much-loved ABC journalist, author and face of Muster Dogs and Back Roads, Lisa Millar, and national and international journalist and former ABC and SBS reporter Belinda Hawkins.
Both women have navigated reporting from oversea postings, covering major news stories in difficult and confronting conditions, and emerged with spirits intact. Both are Walkley Award winners.
From her early years, Lisa was captivated by the idea of a career in journalism and began interviewing family and friends as a child, living in a small country town. Her father, who became a renowned politician, fulfilled his dream of flying – owning his own small plane; yet Lisa developed a fear of flying which took time to overcome, despite aviation being a large part of her childhood.
She talked movingly about the pressures and toll of reporting on stories where ‘you see the worst’ but need to filter it so that viewers can see an acceptable version of the news. And the pressure cooker of breakfast television where trolls are a daily reality. And how she fought back.
Now, she has one of ‘the best roles in TV’, reminding us that life is beautiful in stories from Back Roads and Muster Dogs, which is now in production in the US. So much ground was traversed in a masterful interview by Belinda Hawkins, with a delightfully warm and funny cameo by Lisa’s fiancé, Simon.
What an insightful, impressive, warm and generous woman she is – with a million-watt smile and contagious laugh – and how lucky we were to spend an evening in such great company.
It was a packed house at Somers Yacht Club, and the queues were long at Petersen’s pop-up bookstore, as people enjoyed a chat with Lisa over book signings.
