We cannot by ourselves reduce the number of nuclear weapons in the world, but we are doing what has to be done all over the world if those weapons are one day to be eliminated. We will not contemplate any circumstance in which their possession or threatened use is justified. We reject the secrecy and hypocrisy which surrounds the continuing refinement of the technology.

Will the United States pull the rug on New Zealand? The answer is no. They might polish the lino a bit harder and hope that I execute a rather unseemly glide across it.

New Zealand’s nuclear free movement is a broad-based and popular movement. Our nuclear free status is a challenge to much that is accepted as orthodox in international relations. It was formally adopted in the cold war era as a form of resistance to the dismal doctrines of nuclear deterrence. It is still a rebuke to the unprincipled exercise of economic power and military might.

Today's Schools are not Tomorrows Schools. That's a fundamental misconception.

I've got two shirts still missing from the Bahamas. I'm sure they are part of a youth camping programme somewhere in Tanzania by now.

My back is so scar-tissued that you couldn't find a place to slip a knife.

After that, whenever I drove past Mangakahia, I would empty my ashtray - and I was a heavy smoker in those days - on the road outside the hall.