George Brandis Quotes & Sayings

Let's be frank: if there are hardened terrorists [Australian] who are fighting overseas, we don't want to see those people come back to our shores. But if we could stop youngsters, teenagers from falling into the snares of ISIL or Jabhat al-Nusra or other terrorist organisations through parental intervention and other strategies then, we hope to be able to rescue them before they commit these crimes. — George Brandis

I'm confident as a supporter of same sex marriage, I'm confident that there'll be a yes vote in that plebiscite, and that the parliament will then move very swiftly to implement the will of the people. — George Brandis

I would say to the people of Queensland, and to all listeners around the country, is that if you want stable government in the next term of parliament, it's not just enough to reelect the [Malcolm] Turnbull government. It's also important to elect a senate which will be able to deal with the important reforms, with the important legislation, in a way in which the senate in the last parliament was unable to deal with. — George Brandis

We must break out of this mindset in Australia that we are a small nation on the other side of the world from the main, great Western nations. Australia is the twelfth largest economy in the world. We are a not insignificant player in commerce, in geopolitics and we must be in culture as well and we are. — George Brandis

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. — George Brandis

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. — George Brandis

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. — George Brandis

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

We need to tell Australian stories,we need to encourage and fund and present Australian work but we also need to understand that for a sophisticated, educated, culturally aware, modern nation we can't be parochial. — George Brandis

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. — George Brandis

We have a great literary tradition in Australia. I think the book is very much alive and the more people who are encouraged to read books the better our society will be and the wiser our society will be. — George Brandis

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. — George Brandis

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. — George Brandis

I've always been a lover of classical music ever since I was an early teenager I suppose. I remember the very first piece of classical music that grabbed me was I bought an LP of Daniel Barenboim performing Mozart's piano concertos and I would have been about 14 or 15 at the time and I remember I played it over and over again. — George Brandis

Malcolm Fraser, in the marrow of his bones, despised racism. He despised people who discriminated against other people because they were different and in particular because of the colour of their skin, and I don't think there has been a time in Australian politics where there has been more attention to the importance of that value. — George Brandis

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. — George Brandis

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. — George Brandis

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

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

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. — George Brandis

If you were a person in Rockhampton who is wondering where your next job was coming from, and you had the prospect of one of Australia's largest ever coal projects with a very, very long life span being developed and reviving the regional economy. And you saw the Greens in particular doing their little best to stop it happening. — George Brandis

If I could say something about Capricornia, and it came out in your previous report, there is no doubt that the end of the mining boom has led to an economic downturn in central Queensland, and that is why people in Capricornia, and elsewhere in central Queensland too, are so desperate for a government that will protect their jobs and create new opportunities for jobs in the future. And that is why [Malcolm] Turnbull government's message of jobs and growth and its six point economic plan is so important to them. — George Brandis

If there were to be a Labor-Greens government, that would be the end of the Adani mine, that would be the end of coal mining in central Queensland, and that would be the end of their best shot at economic prosperity in the future. — George Brandis

I think it's very, very important that people outside the capital cities, not just Sydney and Melbourne but also Brisbane Perth Adelaide and so on, have the greatest access to the best cultural experiences they can in both the performing arts and the visual arts. — George Brandis

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. — George Brandis

I am the enemy of anything parochial. — George Brandis

You can't be selective about freedom of speech. If you say you believe in freedom of speech you have to acknowledge the people whose views you disagree with, people whose views you may detest, nevertheless have the right to freedom of speech. — George Brandis

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

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

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. — George Brandis

I am a very, very strong advocate of the notion that we shouldn't equate the arts with other aspects of infrastructure. They have a unique role in any civilised society and that requires appropriate and targeted government support. — George Brandis

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

In Capricornia there is a particular regional particularity and that is the Adani mine. We know that Adani, the massive Indian coal company, wants to develop the Carmichael mine.And people in Rockhampton know that and they know that the Greens are doing everything they possibly can to prevent the development of the Adani mine. — George Brandis

The thing about Dickens is you either love him or you hate him and I fell in love with Dickens, I fell in love with his prose style and I decided that I wanted to read the whole Dickens verve during the course of my life. — George Brandis