people-from-queensland

"As bishops, as presbyters and as deacons we're all invited in that ministry to bombard Heaven with our prayers. And each day as you speak with the Lord in prayer, like the prophets of old, you as new young prophets, you share in the ministry of your bishop and intercede unceasingly before God for your people."

"We need never be afraid to speak the truth. Authentic ecumenism requires that we speak the truth to each other lovingly, and love each other truthfully. Inter-church families must be a special focus of our concern. We ought offer them our friendship, respect their experience and try to find new ways to respond to their needs."

"Our wonderful story of pioneering religious women and men, who opened hundreds of schools in the outback should never be forgotten. Alongside the pioneering priests and bishops, they were the backbone of religious education for more than a century. Now disappearing from the school scene, they have left a major gap."

"Her mind was only a lonely mansion for the stories of extinction. (p333)"

"People tell stories all the time: the stories they want told, where any story could be changed or warped this way or that. (p84)"

"The girl convinced herself that only the mad people in the world would tell you the truth when madness was the truth, when the truth itself was mad. (p64)"

"Truly all it is is commitment, belief and dedication to the task and understanding in yourself that you will do it, even if it seems unbelievable at the time."

"In the Aboriginal world, we deeply understand that all animals that belong to this land are our close relatives. We understand the importance of our close inter-connectivity with everything in our world. This is the ancient wisdom that we must follow. If we care for our country, the country will care for us."

"I have felt very privileged to know and to have been able to work with many senior Aboriginal people of great wisdom and intellect. I could name many Aboriginal people right across Australia who have influenced my thinking in a lifelong journey of trying to understand how to see, feel and understand our world, and fight for it. Their perspective and worldview is huge and cosmopolitan in its outlook. Our world is one that teaches the benefits of having eyes wide open, to be attuned to a spiritual understanding of the environment and self-knowledge, and this leads to having an ability to maintain and build internal worlds of visualization and exploration, to hold a vision. Perhaps this helped me to create a novel such as ‘The Swan Book’."

"Like autumn leaves, bad days fell away as though the genius of the room could not retain them."

"(what is one thing that you want people to take away from The Swan Book?) AW: Just to be kind to the world – it is the only one we have, and to be kinder to each other and to see the beauty and genius in all our cultures, and to see the beauty and right to exist and thrive of the creatures sharing this planet with us. The Swan Book asks for respect and the need to gain greater knowledge and respect for the responsibilities that Indigenous peoples have for the good stewardship of the world."

"The important public officials, passionately depicting themselves as unified people, were obsessed with imagination, narrow though it was in their minds. Well! Aesthetics was all. (p265)"

"We've got a beautiful country, a beautiful world, why not enjoy it?"

"Upstairs in my brain, there lives this kind of cut snake virus in its doll's house. Little stars shining over the moonscape garden twinkle endlessly in a crisp sky. The crazy virus just sits there on the couch and keeps a good old qui vive out the window for intruders. It ignores all of the eviction notices stacked on the door. The virus thinks it is the only pure full-blood virus left in the land. Everything else is just half-caste. Worth nothing! Not even a property owner. Hell yes! it thinks, worse than the swarms of rednecks hanging around the neighborhood. Hard to believe a brain could get sucked into vomiting bad history over the beautiful sunburnt plains. Inside the doll's house the virus manufactures really dangerous ideas as arsenal, and if it sees a white flag unfurling, it fires missiles from a bazooka through the window into the flat, space, field or whatever else you want to call life. The really worrying thing about missile-launching fenestrae is what will be left standing in the end, and which splattering of truths running around in my head about a story about a swan with a bone will last on this ground. (first lines)"

"The Aboriginal caretakers of their traditional country have always understood its power, and why it is so important to care for the land through developing an important system of laws that created great responsibility for caring for the stories and powers of the ancestors. These narratives of great and old wisdom are the true constitution for this country, and urgently need to be upfront in the national narrative in understanding how to care for it."

"All the governments of the world need to act now and act urgently to turn this planetary nightmare around before it is too late, because this warning of the magnitude and acceleration of biodiversity loss is a global crisis with dangerous implications not only for one million species but for human health and long-term survival."

"it was exactly like what the old law people had always said would happen if you look after country, country will look after you."

"[Aboriginal Sovereignty] had become tied into the chosen shame of a continent stolen from his people by a pack of racists, who had turned the argument against the people whose land they had stolen, and whose intergenerational lives have never recovered from so great a loss."

"Of course we will require a greater workforce in health and technology, but we will also need an even greater workforce with the imagination and passion to improve the health of our combined humanity, and our connectedness with the only planet we can survive on."

"We are going to need the greatest creativity we can find to work on the ever-increasing complex problems facing our combined humanity. We cannot afford a government censoring education and knowledge."

"This is the only planet we know that supports life. We would do well to see the world as a sacred site that is holy, speak to our planet with kindness, and protect it as such."

"Anyone can find hope in the stories: the big stories and the little ones in between."

"We cannot be guided by an ethos of neglect, brokenness of heart, misery of spirit that will lead us into a future world devoid of joy. The world’s combined humanity must sing the planet up with careful songs, songs of responsibility and respect."

"In every neck of the woods people walked in the imagination of doomsayers and talked the language of extinction. (p5)"

"After clouds, always mist, and another ghost story to tell. (p187)"

"She remembered Aunty Bella Donna of the Champions once saying that no story was worth telling if no one could remember the lesson in it. These were stories that have made no difference to anyone. Old Aunty was fading away forever. But... even true stories have to be invented sometimes to be remembered. Ah! The truth was always forgotten. (p210)"

"No matter what happens to you, you can maintain your own control about what you believe and who you are."

"We have to think big...'We have to imagine big, and that's part of the problem. We're letting other people imagine and lead us down what paths they want to take us. Sometimes they're very limited in the way their ideas are constructed. We need to imagine much more broadly. That's the work of a writer, and more writers should look at it."

"I've seen that harshness in policies handed out to Aboriginal people over decades, and it doesn't seem to get any better. That's how the politics are played out: not doing the best you can do for someone, but working out how you can beat your opponent. So the swans are a different way of pausing and reflecting on what's happening in the world, and doing it in a light way."

"It’s a really important thing for Aboriginal people to remember how stories are told and the power of stories, and make it an important feature in our world again...English is my language because of the history and what I try to do, and I did that in Carpentaria in particular, is to write in the way we tell stories and in the voice of our own people and our own way of speaking"

"I think that it is amazing to have a culture where stories were treasured over countless millenniums, and kept sacred to this day. It is a unique undertaking to have a governing system that was built to ensure the sustainability of the country, and built on the idea of preserving peace and cooperation between people. When you look at it in this way, this was a far more sophisticated form of culture than ones that seek to colonise others or create wars. These laws and spiritual ideas about country are known and understood by every Aboriginal person, and I think because there is such emphasis on stories, storytelling is almost second nature to most Aboriginal people."

"I am certain that every pontiff brings with him his personal qualities but I also believe the role can shape the person. The Pope will continue to preach the teachings of the Church and, as one of the architects of Vatican II, he will strive to spread the message of Christ and the joy, happiness and dynamism which come with it."

"The Church needs young people for the present and the future. Today the Church is not attracting them as it should, and yet research indicates that young people are just as ready as they have ever been to respond to noble causes. In Christ's vision of the Kingdom, the Church has the most noble cause imaginable, if only it can link this vision with the Church. If young people are to be treated with seriousness, they must be included in the forums of the Church at every level."

"No, I'm not interested, don't lead me into your rubbish, don't you keep taking us on your flights of fancy. Your city lily pad lefty map mindset."

"Maybe I know nothing about politics, but if this is getting you votes, I am a Martian astronaut!"

"I mean—you know—people are entitled to their sexual proclivities, you know, I mean let there be a thousand blossoms bloom as far as I'm concerned, you know—but I ain't spending any time on it because in the meantime, every three months, a person is torn to pieces by a crocodile in North Queensland."

"Treasurer, cannot the Clean Energy Finance Corporation—a development bank ready-to-go—fund industry and infrastructure, Australia builds its way out of the COVID depression—manufacturing, industry, agriculture. North Queensland shovel-ready and COVID-free. Hells Gates, Galilee rail line, CopperString electrification. Not absorb-money but make-money projects, to show you and I are trendy—back in black highway to hell. Um, Treasurer, cough, cough up, the money, make money, make money."

"The person that prevents us from shooting those crocodiles shall be dragged into a courtroom and held to account for the deaths of North Queenslanders."

"The general conclusion of history is that whenever the Church becomes reliant upon governments for money she loses a certain amount of her freedom. It’s difficult to speak truth to power at the best of times, but even harder when the civil power is also the Church’s banker."

"It turns out that these things, too, can be done. So, in an economic emergency, few of the usual rules apply. Governments can marshal the resources and can threaten the narrow interests of private businesses. Hardcore libertarians despise these measures as rampant socialism. From their perspective, they’re right: the very existence of such programs is condemnation of the free market capitalist model that they promote. But they are best seen only as another approach to the management of the capitalist economy. The fact that governments across the are now prepared to spend trillions of dollar to save the from collapse only confirms that the world economy cannot be left safely in the hands of “the market”. And, the situation clearly confirms that when the capitalist class and governments deem it necessary to save their system, lots of measures they once denounced as “unaffordable”, not permitted by the condition of “the economy”, are actually affordable and permitted. Governments can act when required. The ideological justifications of yesterday are revealed as threadbare. But nor are government interventions of this nature geared towards the interests of the working class, only the interests of the bosses."

"Most of the time we’re told that “the economy” can’t afford a decent for workers – higher minimum wages, liveable Newstart allowances, a massively expanded program to get people out of the private rental market, free university education. Budgets have to balance. Businesses have to be competitive. Taxes have to be kept low. And now, all of a sudden, we’re finding that the economy can, apparently, afford things that we have long demanded. Governments around the world are now laying out money on things that just weeks ago they would have attacked as unaffordable."

"is urging the federal government to provide wage subsidies to workers, equivalent in value to Newstart to all businesses experiencing a sharp downturn. It is also asking the government to provide concessional loans of up to half a million dollars, with 80 percent of the debt guaranteed by government, as well as wage subsidies to cover sick leave entitlements. Nothing but corporate welfare of a kind that they have long decried when applied to workers themselves. In the short term, working class households will get some benefits from this cash splash. In Australia welfare beneficiaries will be getting $750 in their bank accounts. in In the United States it is likely that Americans will receiving close to $1,000. But this is just short term relief to get the economy moving. The long term benefits will go to the capitalist class in the form of and other financial concessions. The current crisis demonstrates not only that all the ideological nonsense about the virtues of the free market is quickly thrown overboard when capitalist interests are threatened, but also that the idea that governments are essentially powerless in the face of the markets is rubbish. Governments are not helpless victims who cannot do anything in the face of “economic reality”. In the normal course of events, when we demand things like better welfare, health care or education, governments tell us that it isn’t possible."

"It’s not that governments have suddenly discovered a big pot of gold in the basement of the . They say that they are taking these measures to both protect and to save the economy. But it’s obvious which takes priority. The new measures constitute the largest bailout bonanza in world history, carried out through state-administered transfers of public wealth and current and future debt to billionaires and big business: socialisation of losses, privatisation of profits. The outcome will be to further transfer, consolidate and concentrate wealth, just as has occurred since the GFC. While there is discussion about small handouts, nothing serious is being proposed to halt the mass layoffs now gathering steam."

"One of the most prevalent ideological mantras of Western capitalism is that the market should rule. But as the latest health and economic crises demonstrate, capitalists soon forget their worship of the market when times get tough. They scream for government money, and plenty of it. It turns out that “the market” is fine when it comes to whipping workers to accept lower wages, but when it comes to lower profits, the market can go hang."

"Every student with the misfortune to have studied economics at school or university will know that “the market” is the god before which we must all kneel. Markets bring s and producers together to ensure an equilibrium of , the textbooks tell us. We may all be individuals each pursuing our own private interests, but this selfish endeavour miraculously results in an optimum outcome for all. You don’t even have to step inside a classroom to have received this lesson. It’s rammed home in normal times in every newspaper, in every news bulletin on the TV, in every politician’s speech. Just listen to them. Governments can’t expand spending on Newstart because “the markets” won’t allow it. Governments shouldn’t ramp up public housing because that will throw property markets into a spin. Competition should be opened between universities because a market in education will sift out the bad providers from the good. The champions of the market, if challenged to explain how it is that markets consistently result in supplies of goods lurching from shortages to gluts, point to the economic dysfunction of the old Soviet Union as proof that if “planning” replaces the market, a much bigger disaster ensues. It doesn’t take an Einstein to see what rubbish this is. The last thing any capitalist wants is “free competition”, because that might squeeze their profits. Just look at how the supermarkets have destroyed small shops or how any new industry that emerges is soon dominated by three or four companies globally."

"In pretty much every spending package, subsidies to business, government loans and tax concessions account for two-thirds or more of the funds outlaid. Things that directly benefit workers – the big majority of the population – account for only one-third of the money."

"I say this about everything: when I was on Neighbours I said, 'These are the best years of my life!' When I was filming 'The Wolf of Wall Street,' I said, 'These are the best months of my life!' I always think I'm having the best time ever, and that I'll never have so much fun again."

"I made a conscious decision not to date actors, but not because I hate actors. That’s a nasty generalization to make, and that’s not the case… People take such an interest in your love life when you have a profile, it puts a lot of stress on a relationship. So two people with profiles, I figure it’s just double the amount of scrutiny, and I’d like to avoid that at all costs."

"I will never sell my soul for a paycheck. I don’t need the money because I’m not extravagant. I share my house in London with five roommates. I take the Tube—it’s free entertainment! I intend to stay the exact same person I always was; my family and friends keep me grounded."

"Everyone's like, 'overnight sensation.' It's not overnight. It's years of hard work."