The essence of power is the knowledge that what you do is going to have an effect not just an immediate but perhaps a lifelong effect on the happiness and wellbeing of millions of people and so I think the essence of power is to be conscious of what it can mean for others.

By 1990, no Australian child will be living in poverty.

When George Bush Senior [George HW Bush] was getting his alliance together to go into Iraq - to kick the Iraqis out of Kuwait - he rang me up. I was very close to George Bush Senior; I got to know him well as Vice President to Ronald Reagan. And George rang me up and said, "Oh, Bob," he said, "I'm having trouble with Brian [Mulroney]." He said, "He's got a big wheat trade with Iraq, and he doesn't want to upset that." I said, "You leave it with me."

Geoffrey [Howe] and I were mates, and he disagreed with [ Margaret Thatcher] position. So, we cooperated surreptitiously.

My point was that the war was intrinsically wrong, and as a result of our participation we haven't improved Australia's security but created a greater danger at home and abroad.

If you've got good chemistry at the top, it's an enormous help. It's easy to have good chemistry with some, not so easy with others. With [Robert Mugabe], for example.

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.