All Australians understand that high-quality, reliable and affordable broadband is a critical part of the infrastructure our nation needs to prosper in coming years.

It is our job above all in politics to tackle the big issues and to explain them, and have the honesty to say to people, 'There are no easy solutions here.'

Broadcasters or politicians or writers who think that they are respecting Struggle Street, the battlers, by dumbing things down into one-line sound bites are not respecting them, they are treating them with contempt. It's our job above all in politics to tackle the big issues and to explain them.

Gone are the days when your indiscretions at university were recorded in a roneoed college newsletter of which there is only one copy left tucked in a filing cabinet at the back of a library. Today that same college newsletter is online, accessible by the whole world now and forever.

The United States exists as a sovereign nation. 'America,' in contrast, exists as a myth of democracy and equal opportunity to live by, or as an ideal goal to reach.

The only sure bulwark of continuing liberty is a government strong enough to protect the interests of the people, and a people strong enough and well enough informed to maintain its sovereign control over the goverment.

In politics and in society, we can use our reason to rise above our parochial natures. Too bad that our elected officials don't choose to do so more often.

I think, at times of stress, you have to trust the pillars of democracy.