Although we had been led to believe our mission was suicidal, Russia's intrigue was irresistible. Almost twice the size of Australia, it spans 11 time zones from the Baltic to the Pacific.
Australia is the most isolated continent.
I wasn't always a novelist. I began my writing career as a journalist, working on an afternoon newspaper in Sydney, Australia, doing the crime beat and court reporting. Having grown up in a small country town, I felt as though I had nothing to write about.
I think that people should come to Australia through the front door, not through the back door. If people want a migration outcome, they should go through the migration channels.
National film industries tend to move in cycles. In Australia right now, we're on a high, a feeling of potential, which as yet shows no sign of flagging. But the word 'industry' is misleading. A small national cinema has no industry in the Hollywood sense.
At the end of my trial, I was rather hoping the judge would send me to Australia for the rest of my life.
In 1958, we decided to go to Australia. We were there for six months, and all the shows went well.
Well, there have been periods in the past when prime ministers of Australia and New Zealand were at each others' throats publicly and frequently. That's not productive at all.
The most scared I'd ever been was the first time I sang at a rugby match, Australia versus New Zealand, in front of one hundred thousand people. I had a panic attack the night before because people have been booed off and never worked again... just singing one song, the national anthem.
Yeah, I think it's an absolute disaster that Australia, the government, allowed kangaroo culling.
I don't feel at home in New Orleans. I don't feel at home in Austin or L.A. And I just felt immediately at home in northern Australia.
As we grew to love South Australia, we felt that we were in an expanding society, still feeling the bond to the motherland, but eager to develop a perfect society, in the land of our adoption.
I really love filling out forms - quite fortuitous, really, given that as one of Australia's 4 million-ish disabled people, ticking boxes and recording my life for other people is what I've spent a fair chunk of my time doing.
Did you know that Christmas Day is absolutely the best day to fly? It is. No crowded airports and crowded planes. I always flew to Australia. That's what Christmas was for me - a plane journey to the next tournament.
I want to see an end to sovereign risk questions over Australia.
My father died in 1930, but if you told him or anybody almost in that time that you'd be able to sit back in England and watch a cricket game in Australia, they'd have you put in the loony bin.
From the age of 8, I was running media campaigns on global issues back home in Australia. I was ever so slightly precocious. I would meet with senior Australian government officials, including the prime minister and foreign minister, proposing various solutions to third-world debt and malnutrition.
I'd love them to have adorable little American accents, but I do want to bring my kids up in Australia; it's such a good lifestyle.
South Australia has transformed. There has been a range of changes to our economy over the past 10 years in which we have genuinely set ourselves up for the future. I think we have to start behaving like that's real and project a quiet confidence in the future of our state.
If you got the DVD you can see that George Lucas has taken that person out, as well as the voice, and we shot this scene when we arrived in Australia during the actual filming of Episode 3.
Another time, we had three days off in Australia, so we went out of our way to fly to Ayres Rock.
With so much at risk, you might expect Australia to be at the forefront of the clean-energy revolution and the international effort to cut carbon pollution. After all, the continent's vast, empty deserts were practically designed for solar-power installations.
I know netball is the number one female sport in Australia, but hockey also offers a lot.
I got a promo of 'Nichts Muss' in what would have been 2002 or 2003 and fell totally in love with it after listening to it on an airplane that took me to Australia via Taipei and Kuala Lumpur.
Even if you go to Australia today, it's very much like visiting a state you haven't been to.
I have this home in New York, I have a long-term relationship with my boyfriend, who's from Australia, and I had this business that I had maintain. Even though I wasn't actively shooting, there's a lot of peripheral work.
Native people - about two-thirds of the uranium in the United States is on indigenous lands. On a worldwide scale, about 70 percent of the uranium is either in Aboriginal lands in Australia or up in the Subarctic of Canada, where native people are still fighting uranium mining.
42% of our management team are women. So we've reset the goal to 50% by 2017. Because that's when Westpac becomes 200 years old as an institution - the oldest bank, and indeed the oldest company in Australia. So that's a lovely point to reflect on.
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.
New Zealand is a pretty no-nonsense place to work, like Australia. I mean it doesn't falter to anyone.
I went to Australia and did a three day hike with my fiance through the wilderness, which was nice.
I want to give my compliments to Australia. Ever since your government paid a few million dollars for a Jackson Pollack painting, I figure that it must be a marvellous country.
The Menzies Government, by its participation in the plans for the development of other nations, can see the virtue of planning for them but apparently cannot see the virtue of a plan for Australia.
It is a matter of public shame that while we have now commemorated our hundredth anniversary, not one in every ten children attending Public schools throughout the colonies is acquainted with a single historical fact about Australia.
We were living in California, and it just wasn't conducive for the lifestyle that we wanted with kids. Los Angeles is tricky to get around, there's paparazzi to deal with, and I had this feeling that I just wanted to move back to Australia.
Obviously all of us have thought about Vietnam, particularly in my generation in Australia that were part of conscription and fought there. Our friends came back, forever changed. So there were a lot of questions.
