I wrote a letter to our Australian newspaper about three weeks before the invasion and I said, "Osama bin Laden must be on his knees morning and night praying to Allah that the Americans will invade." And, of course, he was, because nothing more advanced his cause - the cause of terrorism - than the invasion of Iraq. It was an absurdity.

Do you know why I have credibility? Because I don't exude morality.

I led the fight here against apartheid as President of the ACTU, including particularly the Springbok tour in 1971. And that led to the banning of the South African cricket tour which had been scheduled - that was something that I sorted out with Sir Donald Bradman. That was interesting.

I think there are a number of reasons, not least of which is the personality of the Queen [ Elizabeth II]. It's very easy to underrate her significance. I think she finds the Commonwealth and her position as Head of the Commonwealth infinitely more interesting than being the Queen of England, because she has no significant role in the latter.

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.

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

We were great mates [with Rajiv Gandhi]: very, very, very close friends. In fact, on my visit to India as Prime Minister, we were going to his home for dinner. There were two aspects I remember: one is him saying how he had trouble with his security people, because they insisted he wears a vest. He said it was very uncomfortable and he often took it off, but of course, in the end, it wouldn't have mattered if he'd been wearing three vests - he would have been gone.