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" What we have to do is make our way in Asia ourselves with an independent foreign policy. Our future is basically in the region around us in South East Asia. "

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" Well, I think that - I think leadership's always been about two main things: imagination and courage. "

" The death of Malcolm Fraser underwrites a great loss to Australia. Notwithstanding a controversial prime ministership, in later years he harboured one abiding and important idea about Australia - its need and its right to be a strategically independent country. "

" I have said before, you don't expect conservative parties to believe in much, but you do expect them to believe in thrift. "

" Well, Australians should speak for the national interests of Australia, and whatever role former Australian prime ministers may have, one of the things you do is speak frankly about the country as you see the country's best interests, you know? "

" I have long believed, especially after the unprovoked Western attack on Iraq and the ransacking of the Gaddafi regime in Libya, that North Korea would not desist from the full development of its nuclear weapons program, despite threats and sanctions from the West and even from China. "

" If you can't imagine it, you sure as hell are never going to see it. "

" 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. "

" The more we view the country through the prism of Aboriginality, the more likely we are to get the angle right. "

" What distinguished the First World War from all wars before it was the massive power of the antagonists. "

" The essence of leadership is essentially taking the responsibility of trying to interpret the future to the present. "

" Truth is, of its essence, liberating, as it is possessed of no contrivance or conceit - that it provides the only genuine basis for progress and that the future can only be found in truth. "

" At its best, Aboriginal art has been effective in translating an entire culture and the understanding of an entire continent. Indeed, the more we interpret Australia through Aboriginal eyes, through the experience of their long and epic story, the more we allow ourselves to understand the land we share. "

" I've always held the view that great states need strategic space. I mean, George Washington took his space from George III. Britain took it from just about everybody. Russia took all of Eastern Europe. Germany's taken it from everywhere they can, and China will want its space too. "

" The G7, just a European centric show, an Atlantic show, is fundamentally finished. "

" 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 United States being in Asia is unambiguously a good thing for the region. "

" I think the Australian people are very conscientious. During the 1980s and 1990s we proved they will respond conscientiously to necessary reforms. They mightn't like them but they'll accept them. But reforms have to be presented in a digestible format. "

" As prime minister, the pastoral lease question was a very vexing and torrid one for me. "

" I used to say in the cabinet room, 'confidence is not like a can of Popeye spinach - you can't take the top off and swallow it down.' You know, confidence has to be earned. "

" The First World War not only destroyed European civilisation and the empires at its heart; its aftermath led to a second conflagration, the Second World War, which divided the continent until the end of the century. "

" What the Anzac legend did do, by the bravery and sacrifice of our troops, was reinforce our own cultural notions of independence, mateship, and ingenuity. Of resilience and courage in adversity. "

" Aboriginal art and culture draws from the land, for Aboriginality and the land are essential to each other and are inseparable. "

" 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 try to use the Australian idiom to its maximum advantage. "

" Countries get one chance in history of putting into place a savings retirement scheme on the scale of the Australian superannuation system. "

" The First World War was a war devoid of any virtue. It arose from the quagmire of European tribalism: a complex interplay of nation-state destinies overlaid by notions of cultural superiority peppered with racism. "

" Geoffrey Tozer's death is a national tragedy. For the Australian arts and Australian music, losing Tozer is like Canada having lost Glenn Gould, or France, Ginette Neveu. It is a massive cultural loss. The kind of loss people felt when Germany lost Dresden. "

" If one takes pride in one's craft, you won't let a good thing die. Risking it through not pushing hard enough is not a humility. "