Australians are coffee snobs. An influx of Italian immigrants after World War II ensured that - we probably had the word 'cappuccino' about 20 years before America. Cafe culture is really big for Aussies. We like to work hard but we take our leisure time seriously.

Although I'm Australian I find myself much more in sympathy with the Austrian version!

I'm in total sympathy with Dick Smith's sentiments I only wish there were grounds for saying we Australians would never tolerate such appalling treatment of refugees being carried out in our name.

I had a vocal coach. It's a sad thing but I had to hire someone so that I could get my Australian accent back.

The coal industry is an even larger part of the Australian economy than it is of the American and it has an enormous amount of political power.

Well Australia's been in Afghanistan from the get go way back in 2001 but we have been resolute throughout and with support from both sides of Australian politics.

I will go to the next election saying to Australians vote for me vote for the Liberal Party and I will become your PM. So I'm offering myself as the alternative PM - that's one way people describe the Leader of the Opposition - but I'm not in politics for myself to realize a personal ambition.

I started off in England and very few people knew I was Australian. I mean the clues were in the poems but they didn't read them very carefully and so for years and years I was considered completely part of the English poetry scene.

My commitment to the Republican movement was pure and simply patriotism a love of Australia... a desire or passion that all of our national symbols should be unequivocally and unambiguously Australian.

On the same line of reasoning if Australians were to be Australians or rather if Australians were as separate from any other nation as Australia from any other land there would be no jealousy between them on England's account.

Well it's a - I don't want to disappoint you but it's a time worn tradition of Australian Governments over many years not to get into any discussion about that aspect of intelligence matters.

You know I'm Australian and we have got the worst sense of humor. We are cruel to each other.

Health economists have estimated that an injection of $250 million per year in Indigenous clinical care and $50 million in preventative care is required to provide services at the same level as for any other group with the health conditions of Indigenous Australians.

Advances in science and medical research and public health policies have meant that life expectancy for Australians is one of the highest in the world.

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.

Both my parents are English and came out to Australia in 1967. I was born the following year. My parents and immigrants like them were known as '£10 poms.' Back then the Australian government was trying to get educated British people and Canadians - to be honest educated white people - to come and live in Australia.

On Australia Day 2010 as we enter this second decade of the 21st century Australians can be optimistic about our future but we cannot afford to mistake optimism for complacency.