Conscription is an impediment to achieving the forces Australia needs. It is an alibi for failing to give proper conditions to regular soldiers. We will abolish conscription forthwith. By abolishing it, Australia will achieve a better army, a better-paid army - and a better, united society.

Hostility towards China distorted Australia's international affairs for 20 years until 1972, but reconciliation with China 30 years ago had produced a quarter century of constructive bipartisan relations with our region and the world, unmatched in Australian history.

I was profoundly embarrassed by it [the White Australia Policy] and did all I could to change it.

He is lofty, and I am eminent.

He reveals that he has been a poor politician, a bad judge and a malevolent individual.

A conservative government survives essentially by dampening expectations and subduing hopes. Conservatism is basically pessimistic, reformism is basically optimistic.

Poverty is a national waste as well as individual waste. We are all diminished when any of us are denied proper education. The nation is the poorer - a poorer economy, a poorer civilization, because of this human and national waste.