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.

Opera Australia has a mix - it produces new work, it produces from the classical repertoire and, particularly in more recent years, it's done those blockbuster musicals which are very lucrative for it and reach an audience that classic opera or a new opera perhaps wouldn't reach, like South Pacific for example.

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.

The crime of bribery of foreign officials is an offence under the Commonwealth Criminal Code.

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

I am a very, very strong advocate of the notion that we shouldn't equate the arts with other aspects of infrastructure. They have a unique role in any civilised society and that requires appropriate and targeted government support.

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.