The Australian way of affirmative action is setting goals and recognising discrimination and lack of opportunity and deciding to take action and setting some goals and targets. I guess I prefer that language to talking about quotas.

I've never owned a pair of jeans, but I had a fantastic denim boiler-suit and it got a lot of wearing.

One of the most enjoyable things I do at Government House and when I travel around Australia is to talk with children. I tell them about our parliamentary democracy - and I often do that as I'm walking into an Executive Council meeting next door!

My mother played the piano and my father the violin, I can remember my dad teaching me how to waltz; I had my feet on his, my mother playing the piano, and my husband will tell you the lessons weren't very successful.

I believe the old boys' network is a powerful one. No one gives up power and privilege willingly, do they?

We all go back to our roots. My father went to the central west, went to Ilfracombe in 1919. He was the manager of the wool scour there. And, Ilfracombe was right at the heart of Australia's great wool industry, and my mother was a teacher at Winton.

The aboriginal women leaders of Papunya - the Papunya Artists - performed a dance for me: the Honey Ant dance. They'd never done it for anyone else. They honoured me with a ceremonial stick that signifies the story of the land.