But the rule seems to be that the bigger and more life-changing the decision, the less it will seem like a decision at all.

One reason we resist making deliberate choices is that choice equals change and most of us, feeling the world is unpredictable enough, try to minimise the trauma of change in our personal lives.

Obviously, every child should be given the best possible opportunity to acquire literacy skills.

The yearning for strong leadership is more about strength of purpose - clarity of vision - than about merely 'getting tough'.

If I were asked about what to do about the level of insecurity and anxiety in contemporary Australian society, I wouldn't start with politics and I wouldn't say too much about terrorism. I'd suggest as a first step, that you invite the neighbours over for a drink this weekend. Today a drink, tomorrow a barbeque, pretty soon, a community.

On average, Australians watch more than three hours of television a day, compared with 12 minutes a day spent by the average couple talking to each other.

Still, most of those effects occur in the context of harmless play and it is patently obvious that children are not normally turned into aggressive little monsters by TV or video games, since most children do not become aggressive little monsters.