“Labor should not be about creating monuments on hills or statues in parks. Labors monuments and statues are when a young person can find a job, when a person with disability can get access to the ordinary life that others take for granted.”

When I entered federal parliament at the end of 2007, I was appointed parliamentary secretary for disabilities.

Productivity is driven at the enterprise level. Better wages, better performing workplaces, are driven at the workplace level.

There is a history and a reality that we cannot ignore. The challenge before us is real, the questions we grapple with as elemental as life and death.

Labor is at its best when we are the party of ideas and action – ideas that empower the powerless and actions that build a better Australia for the long term.

The whole time I was a union leader, we had to put up with John Howard and Tony Abbott attacking workers’ conditions.

What I believe to be every Australian’s right – a good, safe job with proper pay and conditions.

To the best of my knowledge, when I became national secretary and, indeed, Victorian secretary, the – my predecessors in the union had detected wrong activities, activities which aren’t in the best traditions of the AWU or, indeed, trade unionism.

Trusting people to pursue their own futures invariably provides better outcomes. Money goes where it is needed, rather than being absorbed by administration costs.

My preference is that employees pay their union dues, but what I also get is that I’d rather someone be in the union than not in the union.

I’ve spent my whole working life standing up for workers. Didn’t matter if it was the two trapped miners at Beaconsfield or professional netballers or indeed factory workers or construction workers.

I enjoyed singing, I loved song writing, I loved recording. All those things that involves with creating music was great.

I don’t act in the way other actresses act, in terms of building or creating a character. I don’t transform myself into the role, I invest myself in the role.

The problem then with Jesus is that he cannot be removed from his time and transplanted into our own without simply creating him anew

I don’t feel complete. It doesn’t feel like the electricity is making its connections

The majority of fighters now are Al-Qaeda. If you want to support them, you are supporting Al-Qaeda, you are creating havoc in the region, and if this region is not stable, the whole world cannot be stable.

Creating a role is an interesting thing – each show or each situation is different.

Climate change is…a gross injustice-poor people in developing countries bear over 90% of the burden-through death, disease, destitution and financial loss-yet are least responsible for creating the problem.

The creator does not create only for the pleasure of creating but . . . he also desires to subdue other minds.