George Brandis Quotes
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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.
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There wasn't a lot of music in the home when I was growing up. We didn't have a piano or anything like that but my grandmother, had been a well-known piano teacher.
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I'm reading Barnaby Rudge, one of the less well-known Dickens novels. I've been a life-long lover of Charles Dickens ever since I think A Tale of Two Cities was the first Dickens novel I read.
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Abdul Nacer Benbrika's sentence doesn't expire, I'm told, until 2021, but I think it would be invidious for me as the Attorney-General to talk about individual cases or to anticipate the way in which a court, because it would be a judicial decision, might at some unspecified future time dispose of an application under a law that hasn't even yet been enacted.
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One of the things about federal politics is that it has been remarkably free of corruption.
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I've spent some time in North and Central Queensland, in fact as recently as yesterday I was in Rockhampton, where the seat of Capricornia is based. I have to tell you that people in Queensland, but particularly regional Queensland, are very concerned about jobs. They are very concerned that the economic future for themselves and their children and their grandchildren should be - should be clear.
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I am the enemy of anything parochial.
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You asked me about Queensland in particular and regional Queensland where our message of jobs and growth is resonating strongly because that's what is on people's mind, and when the election results are in on 2nd July, I'm confident that that message will be translated into the ballot box.
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I wouldn't necessarily assume that because Capricornia has traditionally been a Labor seat, that it'll go back to the Labor Party this time because the big issue in Capricornia which is based on the city of Rockhampton is the fact that the economy is - the regional economy is in a poor shape as a result, in particular of the decline of the mining industry and they are looking to the Carmichael mine, the Adani project as containing all of the prospects that they see for their future and that is why people in Rockhampton are very, very fearful of a Labor-Greens government.
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The great works belong to no one nation, no one cultural tradition even. They are universal.I want an Australian vision of arts policy that is expansive, is embracing, is not narrow, is not parochial. For example, that Australians can do Shakespeare just as well as Englishmen can because we, like every civilised nation, partake of the great canonical works. It's not about Australian nationalism; it's about our identity as a culturally ambitious, culturally sophisticated nation.
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There could be constitutional problems with executive detention if it is seen to be arbitrary. I didn't actually say that the NSW Government's proposed anti-terrorism bill was necessarily unconstitutional - that was sloppy journalism - I said that executive detention may raise constitutional problems if it is seen to be arbitrary as being an invasion of the judicial function.
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You can't be selective about freedom of speech. If you say you believe in freedom of speech you have to acknowledge the people whose views you disagree with, people whose views you may detest, nevertheless have the right to freedom of speech.
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I am because the Chinese have agreed - entered into this agreement in 1997. It sets out the circumstances in which the release of a prisoner who is the subject of a transfer may occur in exceptional circumstances. So the Chinese, having agreed to those principles, I'm sure have no objection to them being applied in this particular case.
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This is a very practical discussion about the fact that one of the largest coal companies in the world, Adani, wants to build one of the, develop one of the largest coal mines in Australia in this region of Australia. And if they get the green light to do that, that will secure the economic future of people in Rockhampton, and people in central Queensland. It will secure their jobs in the future, and that's what they're concerned about.
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There have been 44 constitutional referenda in Australia and only eight have succeeded.
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I think it's very, very important that people outside the capital cities, not just Sydney and Melbourne but also Brisbane Perth Adelaide and so on, have the greatest access to the best cultural experiences they can in both the performing arts and the visual arts.
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The crime of bribery of foreign officials is an offence under the Commonwealth Criminal Code.
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As a Liberal of course I am very strongly committed to the notion of artistic freedom and very hostile to the idea of there being a single view of cultural policy dictated from on high.
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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.
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We need to tell Australian stories,we need to encourage and fund and present Australian work but we also need to understand that for a sophisticated, educated, culturally aware, modern nation we can't be parochial.
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I am a very, very strong advocate of the notion that we shouldn't equate the arts with other aspects of infrastructure. They have a unique role in any civilised society and that requires appropriate and targeted government support.
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The tyranny of distance is such an important element of policy and the allocation of resources.
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I don't really know a lot about these 'anti-protest' laws. I'm only vaguely aware of them, but I don't have enough detailed knowledge about them to comment.
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Well everyone's careers is a series of steps, but being the President of the Young Liberals or the President of a Liberal society at university is an important step in the Liberal Party in terms of being noticed and making your name known.
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Michelle Landr is a fabulous member of Parliament. She is a true representative of that community. She's a classic middle-of-the-road Australian who represents the interests of her community with passion and with a lot of common sense.
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The thing about Dickens is you either love him or you hate him and I fell in love with Dickens, I fell in love with his prose style and I decided that I wanted to read the whole Dickens verve during the course of my life.
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I was interested in politics since the age of 14.
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She is not being preferenced - she's not on our preference card because Pauline Hanson's view of Australia is basically a very - it's a very old view.
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One of the senior Labor frontbenchers from Queensland, Terri Butler, said that she was against the Adani mine. So that is the clearest statement we've had from a person who would be a member of a Shorten government, that if there were to be a Shorten government as far as she's concerned, the Adani mine wouldn't go ahead. People in Rockhampton know that and they're very worried about it.
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I think there has only ever been one member of the Federal Parliament from either side found to have been corrupt in the whole history of Australia. I don't think we should create the architecture to solve a problem which barely exists.
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Related Authors
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Pauline Hanson Former Member of the Australian Parliament -
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Kevin Andrews Member of the Australian House of Representatives -
Andrew Robb Member of the Australian House of Representatives -
Scott Morrison Member of the Australian House of Representatives -
Ken Wyatt Member of the Australian House of Representatives -
Malcolm Turnbull Member of the Australian Parliament -
Eric Abetz Australian Senator -
Tim Soutphommasane Writer -
Joe Hockey Member of the Australian Parliament -
Julie Bishop Member of the Australian House of Representatives -
Penny Wong Australian Senator -
Bronwyn Bishop Member of the Australian House of Representatives -
Bill Shorten Australian Federal MP -
Nick Xenophon Australian Senator -
Tim Carmody Chief Justice of Queensland -
Cory Bernardi Australian Senator