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.

There always are a basket of issues in any federal election campaign, but in this part of Australia [Capricornia] I can assure you having as you know a fairly frequent visitor to Rockhampton, that the issue of jobs and employment and where the jobs of the future are coming from, is the biggest single issue on people's minds.

There have been 44 constitutional referenda in Australia and only eight have succeeded.

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.

I think the cultural programming on the ABC is one of the glories of the ABC.

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

Well I'm not making predictions. But the point I can - what I can say to you to contribute to your thinking is as somebody who has been out knocking on doors, doing the street corners, speaking to constituents right across the country is that the Government - that people understand that the Government's message of jobs and growth is addressing their concerns and they have a level of - a high level of confidence that Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison are the people who can deliver.