By 2050, the Australian population is expected to grow from 22 million to 36 million. That increase alone will put huge pressure on our towns and our cities. We will need more homes, more roads, more rail lines, more hospitals, more schools, just to accommodate so many Australians.

As nations we should also commit afresh to righting past wrongs. In Australia we began this recently with the first Australians - the oldest continuing culture in human history. On behalf of the Australian Parliament, this year I offered an apology to indigenous Australians for the wrongs they had suffered in the past.

We are moving toward recognition of the first Australians in the Australian constitution.

A core challenge for Australia is - how do we best prepare ourselves for the Asia Pacific century - to maximise the opportunities, to minimise the threats and to make our own active contribution to making this Asia-Pacific Century peaceful, prosperous and sustainable for us all.

If you accept it to be natural and normal to be gay then it follows it is not right for two folk who love each other to be denied marriage.

I conclude where I began, I was elected by the people of Australia to do a job. I was not elected by the factional leaders of Australia, of the Australian Labor Party to do a job - though they may be seeking to do a job on me, that's a separate matter. The challenge therefore is to honour the mandate given to me by the Australian people.

We are so fortunate, as Australians, to have among us the oldest continuing cultures in human history. Cultures that link our nation with deepest antiquity. We have Aboriginal rock art in the Kimberley that is as ancient as the great Palaeolithic cave paintings at Altamira and Lascaux in Europe.