I think Australia has to be a country which has the 'Welcome' sign out.

You see, psychologically, Australia must understand it has to live in the region around it. Australia must find its security in Asia; it cannot find its security from Asia.

I think leadership's always been about two main things: imagination and courage.

You see, before I became prime minister, the Australian prime minister only attended ever two meetings in the world: the British Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting and the South Pacific Forum.

The great curse of modern political life is incrementalism.

We took the traditional lands and smashed the traditional way of life. We brought the diseases and the alcohol. We committed the murders. We took the children from their mothers. We practised discrimination and exclusion. It was our ignorance and our prejudice. And our failure to imagine that these things could be done to us.

I think the rise of China is one of the great events of all economic and human history, and I think this will be overwhelmingly a positive thing for the region and the world.