Quotes About Australia

Money is to Everything as an Aeroplane is to Australia. The aeroplane isn't Australia, but it remains the only practical way we know of reaching it. So perhaps, metonymically, the aeroplane is Australia after all.

This is a very practical discussion about the fact that one of the largest coal companies in the world, Adani, wants to build one of the, develop one of the largest coal mines in Australia in this region of Australia. And if they get the green light to do that, that will secure the economic future of people in Rockhampton, and people in central Queensland. It will secure their jobs in the future, and that's what they're concerned about.

Leave at night and you reach Australia next morning. But it took 28 years for an Indian PM to come to Australia!

My father's vision was to see the Pilbara developed in a way that would benefit his beloved north, and West Australia and he wanted to see Australia become a stronger economy benefiting from the development of our north. His life was spent pursuing that vision.

Being from Australia, I've never even touched a gun. It's so not a part of our culture.

I deeply believe that if the Australian Labor Party, a party of which I have been a proud member for more than 30 years, is to have the best future for our nation, then it must change fundamentally its culture and to end the power of faceless men. Australia must be governed by the people, not by the factions.

No one knows, incidentally, why Australia's spiders are so extravagantly toxic; capturing small insects and injecting them with enough poison to drop a horse would appear to be the most literal case of overkill. Still, it does mean that everyone gives them lots of space.

New Zealand is a pretty no-nonsense place to work, like Australia. I mean it doesn't falter to anyone.

I just recently crossed over into Europe. They're showing my special Hot and Fluffy in Europe and selling the DVD there too. And they're doing the same thing in Australia and Canada. And I think the biggest part was I did the special in a predominantly Latino area, but I kept the show mainstream and across the board.

It's definitely different in the States. Americans are much different people compared to us. We're much more laid back. I itch to get back to Australia every summer because it's so fast paced there and so stressful.

My friends in Australia, they grew up with me acting, so they're used to it.

I think that people should come to Australia through the front door, not through the back door. If people want a migration outcome, they should go through the migration channels.

I think that prosecuting some college kid because she shared a file is a lot like sending somebody to Australia 200 years ago for poaching his lordship's rabbit. That's how it must seem to poor people who just want to watch a crappy movie for free after they’ve been working themselves to death all day at Tesco or whatever, you know.

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.

I've always been asked the question, "What is it with Australian men?" It's weird because most of my friends here [in the United States] are American men. I think there's cultural differences. It's a really American thing to kind of wax your chest. As a man it's like, "Get rid of that unsightly hair!" In Australia it's like, "Mate, what are you doing? Why would you do that? Doesn't that hurt?" So there's a few little differences that keep us.

On seeing the marsupials in Australia for the first time and comparing them to placental mammals: “An unbeliever . . . might exclaim 'Surely two distinct Creators must have been at work'”

Singing at the Opening Ceremonies of the Sydney Olympics in 2000 was amazing and, probably the highlight of this decade is the opening of the Olivia Newton-John Cancer and Wellness Centre in my hometown of Melbourne, Australia.

I'd love to come to Australia. I'd love to walk about the Sydney Opera House.

I think women across Australia, particularly, are a bit fed up with this constant attack and belittling of women in politics, and particularly the role of a female as a Prime Minister.

I consider myself British and have very happy memories of the UK. I spent the first 14 years of my life in England and never wanted to leave. When I was in Australia I went back to England a lot.

The strongest initiative that government can take to ensure Australia is prepared for population ageing, is to maintain a strong economy, and a secure nation.

He described to me how crocodiles kill more people than sharks. There are just a lot of things in Australia that can kill you.

Some days are like that. Even in Australia.

Now, I know that there are some Aboriginal people who aren’t happy with Australia Day. For them it remains Invasion Day. I think a better view is the view of Noel Pearson, who has said that Aboriginal people have much to celebrate in this country’s British Heritage.

There always are a basket of issues in any federal election campaign, but in this part of Australia [Capricornia] I can assure you having as you know a fairly frequent visitor to Rockhampton, that the issue of jobs and employment and where the jobs of the future are coming from, is the biggest single issue on people's minds.

In Australia I was seen as somebody who did only very modern, contemporary stuff. Then as soon as I went overseas I did two period pieces so it was like, 'When are you going to get out of the corsets?' And I was thinking I just got into them!

Australia is, in fact, an old man's bureaucracy.

Australia is breathtakingly beautiful, and I can't wait to visit again.

Australia is an island surrounded by water. My fondest memories growing up were trips to the beach, walking around the harbour and playing in the beautiful parks.

Years ago, while being in an airport in Australia, I happened to meet with David Helfgott. I knew that he was a bit fond of me and I was personally a fan of him. We were so happy to meet and hug and we had a very warm conversation together. Since that time.... about 20 years ago, I have not meet him again. I think that he is a very good pianist !

Who says Australia offers not a home for every poor Englishman, or any other countryman that finds his way to our shores? And what sort of thanks do we get for it?

I was fortunate enough to coach the US Olympic team in Australia. The parks were full at all times. How can they take away a sport like that?

Savagery was a word that Westerners used to, again, to consciously differentiate them from non-Westerners, to assert that superiority, that cultural superiority. It goes back to the British Empire, and again, you know, what was the purpose of the British Empire? To bring civilization to the savage no matter where they were, whether it was India or Asia or Australia or whatever. It's that civilizing mission that characterizes so much of the history of Western colonialism.

This year I spent two months in Australia, and I did all the training camps in London. It was a really hard winter because I want to give the best performance of my career at the Olympic Games! That is the only title I'm missing and I will do my best to take it!

Australia is not very exclusive. On the visa application they still ask if you've been convicted of a felony - although they are willing to give you a visa even if you haven't been.

My mom was an environmental activist in Australia in the late ’60s and ’70s and I guess I’ve inherited that awareness from her.

I love Australia passionately. I love our landscape. It's influenced most of my work, really. Almost everything I've written is about the landscape. Trying to find, the sacred, the spiritual in it.

Australia! I wanna see some saltwater crocodiles!

I remember when we were in the World Cup in Australia and I had to win the singles against Tony Payne, best of seven legs, to win it. I was 2-0 down but ended up beating him 4-2.

In the end, there will always be a fundamental difference of perspective between New Zealand and Australia on defense, whoever is in government.

Scientists in Australia are working on making biodegradable car parts out of hemp. This might get confusing. When someone says, roll up the window, they might mean, roll up the window!

I'd move to Los Angeles if New Zealand and Australia were swallowed up by a tidal wave, if there was a bubonic plague in England and if the continent of Africa disappeared from some Martian attack.

I suppose I was very disappointed that I was injured during training for Korea. In fact, I had an argument with a grenade and it won, and consequently I was forced to come back to Australia for twelve months.

God bless America, God Save the Queen, God defend New Zealand and thank Christ for Australia.

When I first came to America, I went into William Morris Endeavor for a meeting and I was like, "Yeah, I'm from Australia and I do comedy." I think that one of the reasons they signed me is because I wasn't like any other girl. Maybe girls don't get encouraged. The ones who get encouraged to move to Hollywood are the prettiest ones in their hometown of Iowa, or something. Whereas for me, where I come from in the western suburbs of Sydney, no one ever thought professional actors would come from there. Even my own family was like, "No one would want you on a show."

Most of the time when I'm in Australia I'm not really working, it seems. I'm just at home, getting on with renovating my house or writing music or whatever. So I get back to doing all the stuff that I naturally do. Whereas if I'm away working, that's all there is to do, is to concentrate on the work.

Malcolm Bradbury made the point, and I don't know whether it's a valid one or not, that the real English at the moment is not the English spoken in England or in America or even in Canada or Australia or New Zealand. The real English is the English which is a second language, so that it's rather like Latin in the days of the Roman Empire when people had their own languages, but had Latin in order to communicate.

Every country is like a particular type of person. America is like a belligerent, adolescent boy, Canada is like an intelligent, 35 year old woman. Australia is like Jack Nicholson.