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2009 was a tough year, but Australia rose to the challenge of the global financial crisis. It shows what can be done when we all join together and work together, governments of all persuasions state, territory and local; businesses large and small; unions and local communities right across the nation.
I’d rather be a straight ‘self-proclaimed homosexual’ than a racist, ignorant, hate-filled bigot in Rise Up Australia any day. This party wants to end multiculturalism and discriminate against anyone different. What this mob intends as a grievous insult, I take as a compliment. Long live equal rights.
Strifes will arise through the period. Watch for them near the Davis Strait in the attempts there for the keeping of the life line to land open. Watch for them in Libya and in Egypt, in Ankara and in Syria, through the straits about those areas above Australia, in the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf.
At its best, Aboriginal art has been effective in translating an entire culture and the understanding of an entire continent. Indeed, the more we interpret Australia through Aboriginal eyes, through the experience of their long and epic story, the more we allow ourselves to understand the land we share.
I remember my first meeting with Alastair Cook clearly. The entire Lancashire side, some of them pretty mild-mannered, really laid into him. He'd just scored a double-hundred for Essex against Australia in a warm-up match before the 2005 Ashes. For some reason, we all assumed he must be really arrogant.
It was the corner sweet-shop in Australia that first piqued my interest in interior design. I went into this space with a mixture of apprehension and excitement as a child. It was filled, floor to ceiling, with the most incredible rounded glass bowls filled to the brim with bonbons, buttons, and sweets.
My previous visits to Australia created fantastic memories, so I'm definitely looking forward to another visit. It is one of the most beautiful places I've ever been. I think every person in the entire country is nice. Seriously, I haven't seen or heard of a mean person yet. And they love country music.
There is nothing in the world like the extraordinary Shiraz and Grenache wines from South Australia. While the most sought-after are undeniably expensive (they're made in tiny quantities from ancient vines), they are huge, rich and concentrated, and represent some of planet Earth's most compelling wines.
We must break out of this mindset in Australia that we are a small nation on the other side of the world from the main, great Western nations. Australia is the twelfth largest economy in the world. We are a not insignificant player in commerce, in geopolitics and we must be in culture as well and we are.
I had a good personal relationship with Lee Kuan Yew and I used him, in the sense, that he... He made a statement in 1980, and he said in that statement that, "If Australia keeps going the way it is, it will finish up the poor, white trash of Asia." And he was right, because we were just going backwards.
I was living in a four-story Manhattan townhouse with three full-time servants and silver to be polished, and I was doing too much. My kids were growing up without me, and suddenly I thought, 'I want some other stuff.' So I stopped working instead of cutting back, and went to Australia instead of Vermont.
We could try and establish a world in which the great and the powerful adhere to that international law which they require ordinary mortals to adhere to. In other words, there is one international law, and even America and even Russia and China and Japan must adhere to it, and Australia must adhere to it.
Our culture is becoming more hostile to the gospel. This trend may be more established in Australia than in the USA, but it's now certainly the case that the postmodern mindset is dominant, particularly in the media. Therefore, when we start speaking in terms of certainties, we sound scary to other people.
Trump sees the world in terms of a zero-sum game. In reality, globalisation, if well managed, is a positive-sum force: America gains if its friends and allies - whether Australia, the E.U., or Mexico - are stronger. But Trump's approach threatens to turn it into a negative-sum game: America will lose, too.
Coming to Australia, it was just really magical for me. It just had the wow factor of a different sort of place and, more so, just being with a family that wanted to love me and to have me, because I knew back then, before coming to Australia, there was no way of getting back home or finding my real family.
Australia - not western in geography, of course, but in every other respect for sure (it certainly doesn't want to be regarded as Asian, God forbid) - loves nothing more than to throw its weight around in South-East Asia by playing peacekeeper, carrying out its role as the United States' regional policeman.
The Greens have not been providing you with the full information about where their money comes from or what it's about. I think the Greens in this upcoming state election should resign if they're being funded by an offshore political power. It's tantamount to treason and something needs to be done about it.
I am an ambitious person, but I am not ambitious in the sense that I want jobs only for the sake of them... I am here to do things I think are worthwhile. I am always careful that the political positions I take are consistent with good policy. I would not want to be prime minister of Australia at any price.
Well, we don't think for a moment that either the U.S. or Australia are out to damage the New Zealand economy, but if there were a sustained period in which they had a free-trade agreement and New Zealand didn't have that same arrangement with the States, that could be both trade- and investment-distorting.
One of the nicest things about receiving the accolade of Australia is that, previously, the knighthood was historically for what was termed 'the establishment.' Now, this is an accolade for somebody who comes from a working-class background. Someone whose father was a truck driver and decided to buy a truck.
With Outlook bikers in Australia, if you've got a little emblazoned thing that's got 'one percent' on it, that means you're one percent of the population and a dangerous criminal. If it's '99,' it means you're kind of a nice recreational biker. If it's 'zero percenter,' it just shows you're a total deadbeat.
I was pleasantly surprised with 'Salvage.' I went to Australia and New Zealand for the novel and met a lot of people who had experienced the earthquakes in Christchurch. They responded very strongly to the book because they had been through these natural disasters and were trying to figure out how to rebuild.
I deeply believe that if the Australian Labor Party, a party of which I have been a proud member for more than 30 years, is to have the best future for our nation, then it must change fundamentally its culture and to end the power of faceless men. Australia must be governed by the people, not by the factions.
I'm out there arguing the Labor case. I will do it anywhere and everywhere that I can. I do it within various communities across Australia where I am able to make a positive contribution. And let me tell you, my voice won't be silenced in the public debate because the issue at stake for Australia are so stark.
There is something about musical narrative and Australians. If you want to do something, you kind of have to do it at a level - because we're so far away from everywhere else - that exceeds what is just normal if you want to convince people that some guy from Australia is worth backing for an original musical.
When I first started in the industry back home in Australia at 18, there was a lot of push and shove as to how I should dress, if I was allowed to cut my hair short, if I had too many tattoos. If I didn't get a campaign, or if I didn't get a role, they would always come back to, 'Well, she dresses like a boy.'
People turned around and came back to watch. An enormous crowd formed. Ampol Oil took films. When we left Australia, we also left our boards for the Aussies. Those films were shown all over the country to different clubs. The films and our boards became the basis for the modern surfboard movement in Australia.
When you look at what Star (casino) has done for Sydney over the last fifteen years.. I don't think it has done a lot. When you look at what Crown (his casino) has done for Melbourne, I think it has done an enormous amount. And there's all sorts of statistics and figures and facts that can back those things up.
Opera Australia has a mix - it produces new work, it produces from the classical repertoire and, particularly in more recent years, it's done those blockbuster musicals which are very lucrative for it and reach an audience that classic opera or a new opera perhaps wouldn't reach, like South Pacific for example.
When I was 23, I went backpacking around Australia for three months. I saved up a few grand, quit my job and flew to Sydney, then went to Melbourne and up the East Coast, which was an incredible experience. I remember running out of money and getting my mum to send me a few hundred quid, which helped me get by.
In the U.S. there are many people willing to work on $9 per hour, which is causing Tasmania to lose its famous apple industry and Australia to import more and more of its fruit and food from lower cost countries. In fact, all over Australia there are warning signs of us killing or restricting our own industries.
I, as prime minister, never went to Washington. Certainly never went to a presidential ranch. I hate to say this, but I wasn't going to be the pilot fish to the shark, whereas Australia quite happily bobbed along like a happy little pilot fish with a shark who was a messy eater, and I just couldn't feel like that.
When I was 7, I went to school in Switzerland because everyone on my mom's side of the family lives there. Then we were back in Australia, in Queensland. That's where we had the chance to have lots of different animals. I spent a lot of time living in nature and building cubby houses in big old trees by the ocean.
When I was on 'Terra Nova', I had an Australian iPhone and a U.S. iPhone, different time zones, just a couple differences in the machines, but I was able to keep the international aspect of things in order. But I lost my U.S. iPhone right before I left Australia. Somebody's got it somewhere out there. Send it back?
I really do think I can make a contribution in helping eliminate the disparity here in Australia and doing my small bit to help eliminate slavery around the world. These are huge issues for our fellow countrymen and our fellows in the world, where slavery is growing at an alarming rate, and it needs to be arrested.
Growing up, I wanted to be a journalist. I was in love with Lisa Ling, who's a broadcast journalist and who travels the world. I used to read all of her articles and watch her when she'd go to China or South Africa or Australia. I thought that was the coolest job because she got to travel and tell people's stories.
I was elected by the people of Australia as Prime Minister of Australia. I was elected to do a job, I intend to continue doing that job. I intend to continue doing it to the absolute best of my ability. Part of that job has been to steer this country through the worst economic crisis the world has seen in 75 years.
The lesson of the Federation should be that the lesson is over. Australia must have a new idea of itself. We have to strike out in a new direction, in a new way, armed with our own self-regard, our own confidence and fully appreciating our own uniqueness. All other roads will lead us into the shadow of great powers.
As a woman and as a feminist, I am very well aware of how women have been oppressed and segregated for a thousand of years and I bristle at the fact in 21 century Australia women are still being kept out of public life and I'm sorry, when you wear a burqa you cannot attribute to society as much as you can without it.
It is devastating that jail is seen as a rite of passage for many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, part of the natural order of things. It is an outrage that there is an attitude that this is normal. This is not normal. We can't shrug our shoulders and say this is just a 'fact of life' in remote Australia.
As nations we should also commit afresh to righting past wrongs. In Australia we began this recently with the first Australians - the oldest continuing culture in human history. On behalf of the Australian Parliament, this year I offered an apology to indigenous Australians for the wrongs they had suffered in the past.
Our concerns about what we saw in Australia: an economy clearly tied to China has hitched its wagon to the tail of the tiger. In terms of the general complacency, what we heard over and over from investors and clients and potential clients is, 'yes, yes, there are some excesses, but the government will figure out a way.
I got plenty of guesses wrong on things in the past as well. I don't want to pretend I have some great insight... But when the global financial crisis came along in 2008 it was scary times if you were in the middle of building $5 billion buildings. It wasn't perfect... I think that I am the luckiest person in Australia.
I have visited nearly 60 countries and lived in the U.S.S.R., Russia, and the U.S.A., and I have never experienced anything as good as what we have. Only in the Anglosphere countries - the U.S.A., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand - is there anything comparable. I am amazed at how relaxed we are about giving this away.
Both my parents are English and came out to Australia in 1967. I was born the following year. My parents, and immigrants like them, were known as '£10 poms.' Back then, the Australian government was trying to get educated British people and Canadians - to be honest, educated white people - to come and live in Australia.
The effect of metals speculation was to push up the prices that China had to pay to countries like Australia. This squeezed China. Once the speculative demand ended, all of a sudden the added production facilities that had been brought into production by the high prices went out of production again, and there was a glut.
Our concerns about what we saw in Australia: an economy clearly tied to China has hitched its wagon to the tail of the tiger. In terms of the general complacency, what we heard over and over from investors and clients and potential clients is, 'yes, yes, there are some excesses, but the government will figure out a way.'
Workplace relations is about getting the best out of people. An argument which says that the only way we can compete with other nations in the world is engaging in a race to the bottom in terms of pay rates, penalty rates, protections on rosters, getting rid of family friendly provisions - that is not Australia's future.
I just don't really get into all that sort of personal negative stuff. My job is to outline some positive plans for the country's future and perhaps Mr. Howard and the Government don't like the fact that I'm putting out some positive alternatives. What's their preference.. for me to be a negative carping opposition leader?
The great gift of 'Incarceration Nations' is that, by introducing a wide range of approaches to crime, punishment, and questions of justice in diverse countries - Rwanda, South Africa, Brazil, Jamaica, Uganda, Singapore, Australia and Norway - it forces us to face the reality that American-style punishment has been chosen.