Norman Swan

“When people hear the phrase 'risk-taker', two images come to mind. One is the negative idea of someone who's reckless and unpredictable, sometimes succeeding and at other times crashing out. The other is a more positive view of a fearless innovator who takes risks when others nervously stand back.”

“Most of us would be happy with one big idea implemented in our lifetimes.”

“My role as a broadcast journalist is to analyse information and pass it on to the community. And also as a journalist to hold governments to account.”

“We never got rid of HIV but we have great treatments for it, we never got rid of bacterial infections but we've got antibiotics.”

“Kids need other kids, they need school. But we also don't need an epidemic.”

“When a prevention campaign works, nothings happens!”

“COVID-19 is not the first pandemic and it won't be the last.”

“You see, your nose is the respiratory front line. It's the warning beacon that invaders have overwhelmed your first response defenders.”

“Ian Carroll grew up in Melbourne, went to Carey Grammar and then studied political science at Monash University during the turbulent years of anti-Vietnam rebellion.”

“I was going to be a surgeon at one point, and I remember being taught that the surgical heroes aren't the ones that can staunch the bleeding; what you want is the surgeon that doesn't cause any bleeding in the first place.”

“There's never been a pandemic which hasn't exploited a change in the way we live - politics, social structure, technological change, warfare, it's always something that we humans have done or are doing that's tilled the soil for the pandemic and the solution to it is usually social, behavioural and political.”

“So chlorination, essentially bleaching, does work for SARS CoV-2, it does kill the virus. But the question is whether there's enough chlorine in the pool water to do that, and of course it's very diluted.”

“I've always been interested in pandemics, where they come from, how they arise, and the key feature which really fascinates me is that the biology of the bug is the least of it.”

“You don't want your family to be another cluster of COVID-19.”

“I've been interested in pandemics for decades. I even made a four-part series for Channel 4 UK and SBS called 'Invisible Enemies' which screened in the early 90s.”

“I have often wondered what it was like to be in the trenches during war, knowing that tomorrow morning you have got to go over the top and that you might die and what a surreal feeling, in addition to fear, that might be.”

“One of the things that good leaders do is choose good people to work for them.”