Remarks such as 'great Australian', 'larger than life' are sometimes used where they are not appropriate. But in the case of Kerry Packer both of those descriptions are entirely appropriate. He was a great Australian, he was a larger than life character and in so many ways he left his mark on the Australian community over a very long career in business, particularly in the media and also that other great passion of his, Australian sport

The believer's cross is no longer any and every kind of suffering, sickness, or tension, the bearing of which is demanded. The believer's cross must be, like his Lord's, the price of his social nonconformity. It is not, like sickness or catastrophe, an inexplicable, unpredictable suffering; it is the end of the path freely chosen after counting the cost. It is not, like Luther's or Thomas Muntzer's or Zinzendorf's or Kierkegaard's cross, an inward wrestling of the sensitive soul with self and sin; it is the social reality of representing in an unwilling world the Order to come.

I thank all of those who weren't born in this country for coming here and making a contribution to Australia. We are the least discriminatory country in the world, in my view.

It's too much to expect in an academic setting that we should all agree, but it is not too much to expect discipline and unvarying civility.

How can you render the duties of justice to men when they may destroy you?

I think when people talk about civil liberties, they sometimes forget that action taken to protect the citizen against physical violence and physical attack is a blow in favour and not a blow against civil liberties.

If I were running al-Qaeda in Iraq, I would put a circle around March 2008 and be praying as many times as possible for a victory not only for Obama but also for the Democrats.