If you don't learn about each other, you do not understand each other, and you don't hide warts and all, both sides, then you're forever going to repeat history.

We were very - we were a working family, and my father had this very simple philosophy, simple working class approach. If you spoke to my father and said, "Mr Smith across the road, what do you think of Mr Smith?", he'd only - he'd only say a couple of words. He'd say, "He's a worker", and that meant this bloke got up in the morning, went out, worked, brought his money home, fed his wife and kids, housed them, got them to school, educated them, made sure they were safe and all that. It had so much connotations to it.

I'm a great lover of human beings.

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 can convert anyone.

Marists are workers, we do all the work and Jesuits just think about it.

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.