One of the features of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meetings was [that] she [ Elizabeth II] would have a meeting with each of them. You'd have an allotted time.

[ Rajiv Gandhi] was such an infinitely more attractive leader than his mother.

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 [also] lives on its history, now, to some extent: its achievements [ of the Commonwealth] in Rhodesia and South Africa, which were enormous. And they'll live on that for some time, I guess. And there is still - I'm out of touch with it now, of course - but I still think there is a degree of cooperation at the economic level, to some extent, with the more developed countries helping the less developed. How substantial that is now, I simply am not versed.

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.

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