I don't know who described Mahathir [bin Mohamad] as a pillar of the Commonwealth, but they don't know what they're talking about.

While society cannot provide employment for its members, the production/work/income nexus has to be abandoned as a justification for our present parsimony to the unemployed. An assumption cannot be used to justify making second-class citizens of those who are unfortunate enough to constitute living proof of the inaccuracy of that assumption.

All the arguments there are against Malcolm [Turnbull] - and there are many - the one thing in which he is impeccable and why I would support him in this is that he has an absolutely impeccable record on the question of colour and race. People often wondered why. What I see as a possible explanation is [that] he came from a very wealthy family - a 'squattocracy' - and he had private education at home and then he went to boarding school at Melbourne Grammar School, one of those lead schools in Australia.

I think it is just stupid economics for a government to approach economic management from a strand of thinking regarding unions as enemies.

George Bush Junior [George W Bush] was a religious fanatic, and Tony Blair wasn't far behind in a way.

I went along with it, and wanted to appoint a significant figure in Malcolm Fraser. I didn't have high hopes that they'd be able to do anything, but something was worth a try.

It was very much an Australian/New Zealand initiative to have a nuclear free South Pacific. And the Americans were very apprehensive about this. So, I explained to them that, as far as I was concerned, this didn't involve any diminution in our commitment to the ANZUS relationship. But David Lange took it further and he barred visits of US nuclear warships to New Zealand.