Of all the important relationships that Australia has with other countries, none has been more greatly transformed over the last 10 years than our relationship with China.

There is much in American society which I admire, but I have long held the view that the absence of an effective safety net in that country means that too many needy citizens fall by the wayside. That is not the path that Australia will tread. Nor do we want the burdens of nanny state paternalism that now weigh down many economies in Europe.

Nonviolent action on behalf of justice is no automatic forumla with promise of success: but neither is war. After all, at least half of the people who go to war for some cause deemed worthy of it are defeated.

Nobody should claim that the war [in Iraq] is over. But certainly it can be said that the regime is finished.

The 'black armband' view of our history reflects a belief that most Australian history since 1788 has been little more than a disgraceful story of imperialism, exploitation, racism, sexism and other forms of discrimination. I take a very different view. I believe that the balance sheet of our history is one of heroic achievement and that we have achieved much more as a nation of which we can be proud of than which we should be ashamed.

You can't fatten the pig on market day.

I'm not running away from the fact that I had previously said I did not contemplate a major increase, and that was a fair statement of the Government's state of mind at the time I made that.