George Brandis Quotes

One of the things about federal politics is that it has been remarkably free of corruption.

I decided few years ago to leave the bar to pursue a career in politics because I wanted to make a contribution in Parliament.

The political bug first bit me was Malcolm Fraser's resignation from the Gorton Government.

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.

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

I'm reading Barnaby Rudge, one of the less well-known Dickens novels. I've been a life-long lover of Charles Dickens ever since I think A Tale of Two Cities was the first Dickens novel I read.

Capricornia is one of the most marginal seats in the country. So naturally the electoral battle is fought in the marginal seats.

The great works belong to no one nation, no one cultural tradition even. They are universal.

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.

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.

I've never been one of those people, who subscribe to this notion that the book is dead.

As a Liberal of course I am very strongly committed to the notion of artistic freedom and very hostile to the idea of there being a single view of cultural policy dictated from on high.

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 am the enemy of anything parochial.

The [Maicolm] Turnbull government's position on this is perfectly clear. We believe that there should be a plebiscite so that all Australians can have their say, and that is what Australians want.

Historically, it's very unusual after a change of government for the new government not to be returned.

I think it would be frankly a retrograde thing for Pauline Hanson to be elected to the Senate.

She is not being preferenced - she's not on our preference card because Pauline Hanson's view of Australia is basically a very - it's a very old view.

The modern Australia, the Australia of the 21st Century, Malcolm Turnbull's Australia has nothing to do with the kind of protectionist and xenophobic attitudes that Pauline Hanson represents.

There have been 44 constitutional referenda in Australia and only eight have succeeded.

I was interested in politics since the age of 14.

I was President of the Queensland Young Liberals in 1981.

I don't really know a lot about these 'anti-protest' laws. I'm only vaguely aware of them, but I don't have enough detailed knowledge about them to comment.

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

It is a necessary precondition for the success of a referendum that there should be broad community consensus and bipartisan support for it.

The tyranny of distance is such an important element of policy and the allocation of resources.

The arts are part of a nation's identity, they are part of a nation's soul and when we look at a country from the eyes of people overseas they are part of a nations branding in the world as it were.

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.