I joined the Young Liberals when I was 16 and it was a good way for me to understand how the Liberal Party worked and to learn basic political skills and techniques.

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.

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.

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.

I'd say about Malcolm Fraser, as he said about himself, is that he was always, from the day he entered Parliament in 1955 until the day he died today, was a Liberal.

Malcolm Fraser, in the marrow of his bones, despised racism. He despised people who discriminated against other people because they were different and in particular because of the colour of their skin, and I don't think there has been a time in Australian politics where there has been more attention to the importance of that value.

Bill Shorten should - either knows that or at least he should know it and for him to change the conversation by proposing - by suggesting a proposal significantly more adventurous than where the conversation has been up until now was a very unhelpful intervention.