The death of Malcolm Fraser underwrites a great loss to Australia... I always thought Malcolm would be around a lot longer. I must say, I wished he had been.

I know people are looking at whats happening in Washington and then they also look at events in Europe, in Greece and Portugal and other places and worry about that.

Any sort of political correctness needs to be swept out of the way

We are constantly being told that we've never been wealthier. And many of us are. On average we all are. But that's just the problem.. no one is average.

Our future growth relies on competitiveness and innovation, skills and productivity... and these in turn rely on the education of our people.

In Australia, average temperatures have risen almost one degree since 1910, and each decade since the 1940s has been warmer than the one before. That warming is real. Its consequences are real. And it will change our lives in real and practical ways.

Over the Christmas period, I spent time with both Bob Hawke and Paul Keating, and you listen to stories and tales of how hard it can be when it's really hard, and I think we easily all talk ourselves into the proposition that it's never been as hard as this. Well it's been hard in the past. It's been really hard. So you keep doing it and, the more you do it, the more you gain strength and confidence that you can do it.