Dennis Hood

Dennis Garry Edward Hood (born 12 January 1970) is an Australian politician who began his political career as a member of the South Australian Legislative Council in 2006 on the Family First Party's ticket.

He became the Federal Director for the Family First Party in 2005 and ran for the South Australian Legislative Council the following year as their primary candidate.

He was elected to the upper house in 2006 and, in February 2007, replaced Andrew Evans as the Family First Party's parliamentary leader.

At this time, he was also serving as the party's treasurer and was a member of the Social Development Committee.

In 2007, Hood was also opposed to providing sex ed to primary school children and in 2011 questioned the effectiveness of existing sex ed programs after the prevalence of sexually transmitted infections increased substantially within a year.

He called for stricter messaging from schools about safe sex.

He has also expressed dislike of sex ed courses that do not teach abstinence before marriage.

In 2007, he suggested tougher controls on the growing and possession of cannabis.

Possession of commercial quantities ($40,000), he pointed out, would only incur a small fine (with a maximum of $500), which was an insufficient disincentive.

He also rejected the idea of medical marijuana, saying the harm outweighs the therapeutic benefits.

In 2008, he unsuccessfully pushed for stricter sentences for criminals' second offences.

In 2008, Hood called for a review of the motion picture classification system, as he did not feel the Advertising Standards Board had properly screened out materials of "poor taste," including a liquor advertisement showing the exposed buttocks of three adult men.

He also suggested DVDs of adult films and other restricted content be required to come in plain packaging.

Hood is also highly supportive of increased penalties for drug use.

In a similar vein, he suggested the removal of compulsory voting in 2009, claiming it undemocratic to force people to cast a vote.

In 2010, he noted that the state coroner needed more resources to address the backlog in cases.

The following year he also advocated for the creation of a police task force to address the backlog of unexecuted arrest warrants.

In 2011, he introduced a law to increase police's powers to seize the computer of a convicted child molester without a court order for the purpose of examining its contents.

The law also allowed judges to restrict pedophiles' internet usage.

Hood's staunch anti-prostitution beliefs, which in 2011 he said were consistent with his Christian feminist positions, have remained stable throughout the years.

In 2013, he said that while "rehabilitation is a goal that should always be pursued,... public safety must be the absolute priority" and that punishing criminals should take precedence.

He was reelected in 2014 still on the Family First ticket but followed Robert Brokenshire to the Australian Conservatives when the two parties merged in 2017.

In 2014, Hood argued that the government overregulates people and that, while it has its purposes, it has become too large.

In 2015, he believed that decriminalising prostitution would be akin to the government's encouragement and approval to partake in sex work.

That same year, despite not supporting decriminalisation, Hood criticised the proposed bill for failing to adequately protect sex workers.

In 2016, he was Chair of the Committee of the South Australian Parliament and Member of the Legislative Council.

In 2017, Family First merged into the Australian Conservatives and Hood joined the Liberal Party after the 2018 state election.

Dennis Hood was born in Woodside, South Australia, Australia and raised in Salisbury.

In Hood's youth, his father held three jobs and his mother, who is blind, worked as a meat packer.

Hood holds a Bachelor of Economics with honours in politics and philosophy and a Bachelor of Arts in Politics from the University of Adelaide.

Prior to working in politics, Hood worked in pharmaceuticals as a financial executive for Johnson & Johnson.

In 2017, he supported an anti-bullying bill based on Brodie's Law, which passed in Victoria in 2011.

He said that existing anti-bullying approaches were insufficient and needed to be stricter.

Nine days after the 2018 state election, Hood defected to the Liberal Party following the Conservatives' extreme defeat, a move he was roundly criticised for.

He claimed that the Liberal Party's platform overlapped significantly with his, while the Conservatives were too focused on federal issues and were likely to have "no impact" at the state level.

In 2018, he opposed the continuation of Safe Schools, a policy that reduced bullying of LGBTQ+ students and trained staff on how to deal with sexuality-based abuse.

In 2019, he again voted against decriminalisation.

Between 2020 and 2022, he was a government whip.

In April 2020, he served on the South Australian Parliament's COVID-19 Response Committee.

Hood generally subscribes to Keynesian economics.