Like ‘Lost in Translation,’ I worked on an advertisement where a Hollywood star was doing a commercial just for Japan. The star was Hugh Jackman. Since I’m Australian, they just assumed I knew him, and I didn’t correct them.
For the young, and those newly introduced to Australia, milkbars represented an opportunity to dip a toe in the water when it came to discovering Australian food culture at a grass roots level.
You can’t really get into regular football after you watch Australian rules football because it’s just two different ends of the totem pole.
Kylie Minogue is the greatest thing that has happened to Australian music.
Receiving the Newcombe Medal for a third year in a row is an amazing honour. The Newcombe Medal is a great occasion for the Australian tennis community to come together and celebrate our sport, recognise people’s achievements and contributions to Australian tennis.
Being British, you see a lot of Australian movies and TV shows.
I don’t think of myself as being colored but of being Australian.
I’ve been all different shapes and sizes in my lifetime. I started wearing shapewear as a teenager after I did ‘Australian Idol.’ I had a little tummy, and I was always really quite conscious of that.
I support all Australian films.
Being in Australia makes me happy. My partner is Australian, and my home is in Australia, and it’s ridiculous not to be Australian – it’s a logical step to take.
Some people say I sound Australian. I guess it’s all down to Miss Matthews, who taught me English when I was growing up in Dar es Salaam. Nearly everyone in Denmark speaks English, and TV shows are only ever subtitled, not dubbed.
It is time Australian Muslims stop being treated as negotiable citizens in their own country. It is time people stop ‘tolerating’ us, presuming some right to decide if we have a place in our own home.
I stress the uniqueness of the Australian landscape and its metaphysical and mythic content.
The Australian film industry is a small industry, so you have to really be flexible within working in different mediums. A lot of actors work in theater, film, and television, because there’s not much opportunity in terms of employment there.
I don’t know, maybe Australian humour isn’t supposed to be funny. It’s as dry as the Sahara, and I think people miss that.
Australian wine and Australian women – that’s my weak point. Ha ha ha ha.
I just wanted to do this all Australian film and we didn’t want to give creative control to overseas ’cause whoever comes on my sets, whether you’re sweeping the floor or an actor, it doesn’t matter who comes up with the ideas, it’s a collaboration.
If we are to celebrate the giants in Australian public life, then Robert Garran must be among them. A lawyer and passionate advocate of Federation, Garran was one of several hands that drafted our constitution.
On YouTube you can tell what countries are watching and I’ve definitely noted a strong Australian following. You can plan your tours around where the love is on Twitter and YouTube – before, you couldn’t tell.
I’m not sure it’s affection for Australian or New Zealand films or not. I think it’s just that there’s something about ‘Wilderpeople’ that has really struck a chord.
There are things I read doing research, and there are certain books and writers I just love to read. There are books of Brian Morten’s that I love, for instance. There’s a wonderful book by an Australian writer named Helen Garner called ‘The Children’s Bach,’ and I just love the way she uses language in it.
If 30 Australians drowned in Sydney Harbour, it would be a national tragedy. But when 30 or more refugees drown off the Australian coast, it is a political question.
I still listen to a lot of the classics from Bob Dylan and John Martin, but I love electronic music as well. I’m a big fan of an Australian DJ and producer called Flume, who I think is incredible. He should be more successful in the U.K.!
I grew up on cricket and I think Australian kids are getting so Americanized, you know?
No one cares about the Davis Cup. How many people know I won five Davis Cups and seven majors, but that I rarely played the Australian Open?
An Australian girl size 12 and a Swedish girl size 12 are completely different, just because of the way they’re formed. It’s becoming this worldwide movement because people are getting it. We all have two different parents; we’re not supposed to look the same. It’s ridiculous.
As Australian palates continue to be curious and enquiring, so does the variety and regional specificity of cuisine options.
It is amazing to have the UFC to come here to Perth… it is great for Australian Mixed Martial Arts and great for the sport, and it is going to be great for Perth to have such a world-wide event, through pay-per-view, hosted here.
I spend more time with Whisper than I do with anybody else. I chose her when she was three or four days old, I’ve had her since she was nine weeks. She’s a mini Australian cattle dog; cattle dogs need to have a job, and her job is just walking after me.
An education system where student selection is based on credit capacity and not merit capacity and where graduating students are no longer indebted to the nation, but increasingly indebted to the Australian Taxation Office – that’s no way to improve the quality of education.
We believe in the Australian promise; that if you work hard, you won’t be left behind.
Australian women tend to tell it like it is – even if it’s the brutal, honest truth. I think American women usually break it to you a little easier. There’s a softer side to them.
If government and media and all of us in the Australian tribe got together, and the rock industry, we’d just be the greatest cultural force the world has ever seen – we’re such an amazing race.
I have a TV Soap Boomerang award, and I always start my year with the Australian Open tennis! Tennis, soccer, you name it.
When British or Australian actors perform American characters, we laud them and talk about how great it is they are able to do this other accent that is not their own. Americans have different relationships with other accents.
The Australian team that I was lucky enough to play in had a certain aura and sometimes you had teams beaten before you even walked on the field.
My family are observant Muslims, but I’ve come to the faith through an intellectual conviction, and that’s something that they’ve taught me. It’s never been forced upon me. They’ve given me a very strong identity as an Australian Muslim.
I love simple, elegant clothing with a hint of sexy, and that, for me, is so hard to find. I usually always end up finding Australian brands, and Kookai is an example of that.
When you go to Australia you are always asked whether you can perform in hostile environments against high pace and every Australian side I have played against has had guys bowling over 90mph.
With the Australian Government paying more of the hospital bills, it will have the incentive to make sure people are treated through less expensive and more appropriate primary care services.
I think I should be described as ‘bi’ – not bisexual, because I’m not – I’m gay – but ‘binational’ because I retain British nationality, and I add to it being Australian, which is like having your cake and eating it.
I have enough trouble just speaking normal Australian. On ‘Vikings,’ we had a great vocal coach who helped make all of us sound the same. But I’m very bad at accents, to be honest.
My food hero would be someone like Elizabeth David, because I think what she did for Britain was amazing. Also David Thompson, an Australian chef who does Thai food and really understands the basis of it, has always been very inspiring.
‘Australian Rules’ was such a beautiful film – it was art for me.
I think that’s the way we play our best cricket, when we’re aggressive, we’re in the fight together, we’re hunting as a pack as one and we’re working for each other and backing our mates up on the field. That’s part of being an Australian, in my opinion.
If Australia finds it has a strong Australian dollar, and it has higher unemployment, then it would have to respond, and that would either be by increasing domestic demand or by weakening its own currency.
Mum told me stories about her time in the Women’s Royal Navy, and about her dad, who had died before I was born – he’d been sent to Australia as a child, then joined the Australian Army in the First World War and fought at Gallipoli.
Our South Australian farmers left their holdings in the hands of their wives and children too young to take with them, but almost all of them returned to grow grain and produce to send to Victoria.
Not long ago, in an excruciatingly remote village in the Australian Outback, I was startled to see a bartender in a cowboy hat measuring out a classically proportioned French 75 – something he’d picked up on the Internet, he told me.
If the states and territories do not sign up to fundamental reform, then my message is equally simple: we will take this reform plan to the people at the next election – along with a referendum by or at that same election to give the Australian Government all the power it needs to reform the health system.
My husband is Australian, and my family is scattered around the U.K. and France mostly, but we try to get a big group together for the holidays.
