The media, I think, have to be accountable for some of the misdirection that is put forward in politics in some of the misapprehension, maybe even some of the lack of confidence in the political process. Because the most benign, frank thought can be twisted and portrayed as something that it really wasn't intended to.

The media, I think, have to be accountable for some of the misdirection that is put forward in politics in some of the misapprehension, maybe even some of the lack of confidence in the political process. Because the most benign, frank thought can be twisted and portrayed as something that it really wasn't intended to.

I've always said: if we ignore the issues that people want us to talk about, then you will have movements outside of the establishment political parties grow.

I can assure you that everyone that talks to me doesn't share my views. I seem to be a barometer of public opinion.

There seems to be for a long time now a range of issues that the Australian people want to talk about, but for some reason politicians of various shapes and stripes have decided they don't want to talk about.

What I seek to do is to establish the facts as I see them, or as I understand them, and to engage in constructive dialogue to get good outcomes.

For all the advances in technology, science and communications, there are signs that we are failing in areas where it matters most: our personal relationships and society in general. The atomisation of society evidenced by the startling increase in recent decades of single person households and the identification of loneliness and isolation as one of our most pressing new social problems, should give us cause for concern.