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.

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.

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.

Historically, it's very unusual after a change of government for the new government not to be returned.

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.

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.

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.