When Sir Winton Turnbull [who represented a large rural seat], a slow and sometimes stumbling speaker, was raving and ranting on the adjournment and shouted: "I am a Country member." I interjected "I remember." Sir Winton could not understand why, for the first time in all the years he had been speaking in the House, there was instant and loud applause from both sides.

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

Australia's treatment of her Aboriginal people will be the thing on which the world will judge Australia and Australians - Not just now, but in the greater perspective of history.

If I begin my book with a review of the coup, it is only to show that my abiding interests for Australia did not end with it. They shall end only with a long and fortunate life.

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.

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

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.