I really had very little to do with Pierre Trudeau. He was off the scene very soon.

Unless and until something concrete is done about addressing the Israeli-Palestinian issue you won't get a real start on the war against terrorism.

In fact, soon after that [South African sanctions], I was going on an official visit to the UK and Margaret Thatcher instructed every minister to clear the decks of any outstanding matters between us - Australia and the Brits. And she went out of her way to make sure that that was as successful a visit as it possibly could be.

I had a very close relationship with [Brian] Mulroney.

[John Howard] led the Government. They had the numbers, and just basically automatically went along with the Americans.

One other thing: at the meeting in Canada, [there was] the coup in Fiji. This comes to an important part of the Commonwealth: the role of the Queen [Elizabeth II]. I had absolutely just enormous respect for her as leader of the Commonwealth. You could talk to her about any of the fifty-one countries of the Commonwealth and you could have an intelligent conversation with her about the economics, the politics. She really immersed herself in the Commonwealth.

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.