It is a necessary precondition for the success of a referendum that there should be broad community consensus and bipartisan support for it.

I think it would be frankly a retrograde thing for Pauline Hanson to be elected to the Senate.

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.

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.

If you were a person in Rockhampton who is wondering where your next job was coming from, and you had the prospect of one of Australia's largest ever coal projects with a very, very long life span being developed and reviving the regional economy. And you saw the Greens in particular doing their little best to stop it happening.

I think it displayed what the Australia Council does so well, the awarding of artists who at various steps in their career had been encouraged by the Australia Council.

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.