Parents should be encouraged to read to their children, and teachers should be equipped with all available techniques for teaching literacy, so the varying needs and capacities of individual kids can be taken into account.

Is it possible that literacy standards are falling because young Australians are growing up in a culture in which they can be entertained and informed, and in which they can communicate effectively, without having to master any but the most rudimentary literacy skills?

Universal literacy was a 20th-century goal. Before then, reading and writing were skills largely confined to a small, highly educated class of professional people.

Reading is a huge effort for many people, a bore for others, and, believe it or not, many people prefer watching TV.

One of the most important responsibilities of leaders in any setting - including business organisations - is to tell us our own story; to explain us to ourselves; to help us weave some meaning and purpose into the fabric of our lives; to illuminate our understanding of where we have come from; to paint word pictures of our future onto which we can project our aspirations.

A strangely reflective, even melancholy day. Is that because, unlike our cousins in the northern hemisphere, Easter is not associated with the energy and vitality of spring but with the more subdued spirit of autumn.

The thing we need most is each other.