The Australian Government's decision to take on the dominant funding role for the entire public hospital system is designed to: end the blame game; eliminate waste; and to shoulder the funding burden of the rapidly rising health costs of the future.

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.

I've been around long enough to not take seriously statements like I am about to be crushed. I'm about how do we seek re-election of the Australian government, how we prevent Tony Abbott from being elected. The bottom line is that it should be all hands to the pump rather than saying other, frankly negative and internally divisive things.

It is tragic that we have lost one of our nation's finest actors in the prime of his life. Heath Ledger's diverse and challenging roles will be remembered as some of the great performances by an Australian actor.

2009 was a tough year, but Australia rose to the challenge of the global financial crisis. It shows what can be done when we all join together and work together, governments of all persuasions state, territory and local; businesses large and small; unions and local communities right across the nation.

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.

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.