We want our leaders to be fair dinkum, as much among us as above us.

Communication is the conduit of leadership from the Prime Minister down to the leading hand of a small group of council workers fixing the roads. Leadership uncommunicated is leadership unrequited!

But it is my total conviction that all the trappings of good leadership are generic and widely applicable whether you are standing in a khaki queue with your mess tins or on an automobile production line.

I must say that part of our national wealth is not only the nation's people but those people who lead them.

Leaders who fail to appreciate this fundamental precept of accountability must also fail to muster the profound commitment true leadership demands.

It's instructive to consider the more spectacular and well-known falls from grace of leaders in the public eye... In the main, the issues behind these falls could be grouped under a lack of competence, a lack of support or loyalty from those they sought to lead, and a lack of failure of integrity. Of all these the last is the most egregious, the most fatal. We so much want our leaders to be unfailingly decent that an obvious or perceived flaw in integrity can be the toxin which kills them off.

Our vision is to look through the eyes of our kids. We are a lucky, peaceful nation. We are an unselfish people. That's one of our proudest national attributes.