The Labor roots are very strong.Paul Keating, made a comment several years ago about looking at that dragging yourself out of poverty, dragging yourself out of that situation.

Reconciliation will not work if it puts a higher value on symbolic gestures and overblown promises rather than the practical needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders in areas like health, housing, education and employment.

As far as I'm concerned, any Aboriginal that gets out there and accepts money that has been put out as a package for this bicentenary is actually accepting blood money. We've still got people with leprosy and we still got tremendous problems. These problems have not been our problems, they're the problems of the European population of Australia.

I noticed - and this is one of the people don't understand of Tony [Abbot] - he grew. To me he grew as opposition leader. He come in - he wasn't really good at the beginning when he was opposition leader. He won the confidence of the Australian people and got the job as Prime Minister. He grew in Indigenous affairs. To me, we just totally disagreed in it, but now we're very much one on one on it.

I'm a great lover of human beings.

I can convert anyone.

My father was an old - fashioned bloke, and he actually told me one day, "I'm not your friend, I'm your father. My job is to bring you up, give you values for life and to ensure that you carry those values through."