It's Australian to do such things because, however uncivilised they may seem, it's human to do them.

The yearning for strong leadership is more about strength of purpose - clarity of vision - than about merely 'getting tough'.

The thing we need most is each other.

Yet in our enthusiasm for the idea that everyone should be able to read and write fluently, we may be missing a crucial point: in today's culture, finely honed literacy skills are simply not as important as they once were.

Obviously, every child should be given the best possible opportunity to acquire literacy skills.

It is the misfortune of contemporary leaders, across the whole spectrum of Australian life, that the community's demand for strong leadership is growing in direct proportion to our lack of confidence in ourselves. The end of this century is an unusually difficult time to be a leader in Australia.

One reason we resist making deliberate choices is that choice equals change and most of us, feeling the world is unpredictable enough, try to minimise the trauma of change in our personal lives.