Don't talk to me about what's happened since [Nelson] Mandela! His successor was absolutely hopeless - "no such thing as AIDS" - and this present President... It's a tragedy, you know, what's happened there post-Mandela, because he was an iconic figure.

It was a remarkable relationship. Margaret [Thatcher] and I had a love/hate relationship. She was always defending the South African regime and we had some terrible fights, including an enormous one in Canada.

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.

The things which are most important don’t always scream the loudest.

Peoples have come to experience that political structures and divisions of power are not immutable. Nor will they perceive the distribution of wealth and resources between nations to be unalterably ordained by heaven and incapable of drastic rearrangement by the less than gentle manipulation of man.

She [ Elizabeth II] is, you know, "Do-what-you're-told, Lady". But in the Commonwealth, she is much more than just a figurehead.

I believe [ Rajiv Gandhi] had a real sense that he would be assassinated.