The great task of statesmanship is to apply past lessons to new situations, to draw correct analogies to understand and act upon present forces, to recognise the need for change.

In the last twelve years, we have come some distance towards reconciliation and the breaking down of disadvantage. Let us take encouragement from what has been achieved and set our minds and hearts to end the remaining roadblocks.

Even Australians who take a very, very hard line about asylum seekers - and unfortunately there are more than I would like to think - are probably a bit uncomfortable with the kind of treatment that has been meted out to children in detention by the Australian Government, in their name.

There are no quick fixes to Indigenous poverty and social disaster.

He (Gorton) is not fit to hold the great office of Prime Minister.

We are lagging far behind comparable countries in overcoming the disadvantages Indigenous people face.

Reconciliation requires changes of heart and spirit, as well as social and economic change. It requires symbolic as well as practical action.

Genocide involves the attempt to achieve the disappearance of a group by whatever means. It does not have to be violent, it could be a combination of policies that would lead to a certain group dying out.

I think the climate is too important to say we are going to wait until all our economic woes are over before we act effectively.

People die because they find living too painful.

Solutions will not be found while Indigenous people are treated as victims for whom someone else must find solutions.