This is what Duncan Lewis, the head of ASIO, told Fairfax Media late last year about Islamist extremism's connection to the broader faith: "This is not about the religion other than the fact that it is being hijacked by ne'er-do-wells."
Election 2016 was like a soccer match where the overwhelming favourites found themselves stuck at one-all at half-time, still tied after 90 minutes but then squeaked out of jail with a couple of quick goals in extra time.
The Liberals may well be an election-winning machine, but it is a machine with a remarkable inability to elect women.
After acting like a sook on election night, Malcolm Turnbull reemerged this week as someone more like a statesman or an Indigenous elder.
And so, after a tremulous, difficult birth, the Turnbull government begins anew, for the first time under its own electoral steam.
What if budgets, and candidates for office, told the truth?
The plain fact is that the mainstream politicians have forfeited our trust and lost our respect.
The case for keeping the terms of the Coalition agreement between the Liberals and Nationals secret has evaporated.
What the Liberals was wrong and it backfired. Voters don't like seeing serious issues being used as a club for personal attacks.
More than 400,000 Australians chose to vote for One Nation in the Senate.
Most of what passes for political analysis, particularly the spin coming from the main parties, is facile.
Whether Turnbull lasts as leader, and whether his term is a standard three-year stint, is largely in his hands.
On July 2 the Australian Electoral Commission held the nation's eighth Senate general election and it has revived Malcolm Mackerras' hope for Australian democracy.
It wasn't just Malcolm Turnbull's Liberals who had a near-death experience in the days after July 2.
There's one group of Australians who show far more trust in public institutions than everyone else. Here's why.
Whenever neither side of politics secures a majority, people assume the Governor-General will be the arbiter.
Much talked-up pledge to generate 'jobs and growth' was a scheme to cut company tax plus a lot of fancy packaging.
When the other side is using a sledgehammer on you, you have to pull one out and start swinging yourself, Malcolm Turnbull was told.
Let's rewind the clock. It's the Tuesday before polling day and Tony Nutt, Malcolm Turnbull's campaign director, rings his Labor counterpart with an offer George Wright could not refuse: a final leaders' debate on prime time TV.
So Bill Shorten thinks this government will not last and that Australians will be back at the polls within 12 months.
A day may come when Malcolm Turnbull will come to see the solid kicking he received from voters last week as the best thing that ever happened to him.
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Technically it remains unclear whether the beleaguered premiership of Malcolm Bligh Turnbull will continue uninterrupted. Practically however, it is now virtually inevitable.
The current uncertainty surrounding the outcome of the July 2 election has sparked speculation of a possible re-run later this year to resolve what appears to be a looming deadlock. This would take Australia into uncharted territory.
Talk of a potential constitutional and/or political crisis following this federal election result is at best premature.
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There's no doubt that some of her supporters share her racist beliefs. However, there are many others who just feel incredibly anxious about their falling living standards.
There's no evidence that South Australia or any other state will "benefit enormously from the free trade agreements the Coalition has signed", in large part because the Coalition has ensured there isn't.
Listen to Scott Morrison and Julie Bishop and the explanation for the Coalition's disastrous election result is all down to Labor telling a lie about Medicare and the gullible voters falling for it.
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