Businessman

I'm probably not your typical business person in many ways. I don't wear a suit. I don't carry a briefcase. I don't wear a tie. I'm fairly casual. I haven't got a big office, and it's in a very ordinary part of town. I'd much prefer to downplay than impress.

Even if you sell the same number of plasma televisions - if you are selling them for 20 or 30 or 40 per cent of the original price, your revenue goes down, and the profit goes with it.

If you do genuinely care about people and love them a little, eventually you all have this common goal about where you want to go. They see it, and they believe it, and they become believers with you, and you can achieve wonderful things.

I was talking to Rupert Murdoch the other day at a lunch, and he said, 'Maybe I'll live to 100'. He actually thinks he will live to 100!

There are plenty of people smarter than you by a long way. I just got lucky.

There is no Internet business in furniture or bedding. Zero - practically in the world.

I've given away tens of millions of dollars over the years - probably to almost every charity in Australia.

What I think is that we should be helping people so they can reach an even greater potential.

I am a commonsense sort of a person, and I don't get carried away with emotion and fears.

The cost to do business in Australia is higher, and the lack of scale is a part of that - Australia is a very small market compared to the U.S.

I still have a fear about going broke. I always think about it.

Kids go to school; we develop them at school. We develop them later on in the workplace so that we get better quality individuals, so that we get less people that are dependent or get into problems.

I think the main thing you measure your success by is what you do in comparison to your opposition. If you're in an industry where you're the leader, then you're performing very well.

Society might have been better off without them, but we are supposed to look after the disadvantaged, and so we do it. But it doesn't help the society.

I know people like myself where we've got resorts, or we're in the hospitality business, and we just can't make money because you're paying someone minimum $42 per hour or something on a Sunday.

I'm hoping there'll be, if not a boom, then a big pick-up in housing because if that happens, then it will employ a lot of people, and the domino effect will go through the community, and it will help everyone.

We're supposed to be an entrepreneurial company; we're meant to be expanding and looking for opportunities - but the minute you do it, you get your head bashed in.

People don't just come to work to make money; they need satisfaction.

You get that air of satisfaction from achievement. It makes you feel good. We are only here for a very short time, and so you're crazy if you don't go out and try to milk it to the greatest extent you can.

I get a lot of comments from people that I'm just an ordinary bloke. They immediately feel they have a closer relationship with you; they relate to you.