As you know, the Australian Labour Party is committed to turning the country into a republic. We've not stipulated a timeline for doing that. We are sensitive to the other priorities we've got as a nation and in the world, but in time the country will head in that direction.

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.

The alternatives [to the stimulus packages] were to do nothing or, worse, effectively replicate the Premiers' Plan of 1931 when governments cut expenditure, thereby compounding the problems created by a private sector already in retreat. The result, of course, was an economic rout, appalling unemployment and a decade of negligible growth through the 1930s

We have a prime minister, I'm the foreign minister, I'm trying to get on with the job of doing Australia's foreign policy.

By way of personal instinct, I have an inherent distaste for grandiose rhetorical statements, which don't have any substantive dimension to them

Something my mum taught me years and years and years ago, is life's just too short to carry around a great bucket-load of anger and resentment and bitterness and hatreds and all that sort of stuff.

Senator Obama's message of hope is not just for America's future, it is also a message of hope for the world as well. A world which is now in many respects fearful for its future.