He will always know as we know now that in the heat of battle he did not fail when mateship and duty called.

There are some things that can't be measured.

The global economic outlook remains fragile and uncertain. Global economic imbalances persist and we must address them or risk future instability.

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.

Through hard work and education, we can deliver a strong economy and opportunity for all.

As our economy faces up to potential labour shortages due to our ageing population and as it moves to a new level of sophistication to compete with the rest of the world, we're going to need every Australian on board pulling their weight, rejoining the workforce, gaining new skills. Writing off individuals and communities suffering from poverty just creates a dead weight for our economy to drag along.

He will always know as we know now that in the heat of battle he did not fail when mateship and duty called.