I think it's important to have a blend just as we need to have by the way a mix of different opera companies and different arts companies.

The great works belong to no one nation, no one cultural tradition even. They are universal.

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.

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.

We have a great literary tradition in Australia. I think the book is very much alive and the more people who are encouraged to read books the better our society will be and the wiser our society will be.

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.

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