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.

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.

We all of us have a reputation, something we are known for, and sometimes it may be different from what we would like to be known for. At the core of this is the simple but fragile heart - our integrity - which is always under challenge, under tests both trivial and profound every day of our lives.

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

Oh, fatherhood has a very humanising effect on a bloke like me in the military. As a dad, you become absolutely aware of your own human frailty and a need to be nurturing and compassionate and fatherly

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!

In business, integrity is just as important as in any of the great public offices... but I believe one of the first and fundamental obligations of competent business leadership is above all to protect the reputation and integrity of the business - to that degree the integrity of the business is the integrity of the leader.

They (the youth of Australia) are out there clamouring in all forms of voice, and they are not so much hedging us older Australians aside as saying, 'For heaven's sake, listen to us and empower us to help drive this country towards a wonderful future.'