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.

If I told my parents that I was going to do that [ to be really counsel to a Prime Minister] when I was kid, they would probably put me in therapy.

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

Unless we confront our history, unless we deal with it and move forward, not with recrimination, and move forward then we're always going to have the problems.

I have got to say, I'm a businessman, I work in business, worked with some very large corporations around the world, and I have never seen a better operating machine than what the New South Wales right machine is.

The Labor Party has always - always been praised as leaders. In fact, there's probably more books written about ALP leaders and the ALP people than the Libs or anyone else in Australian's history, but there was substance to it.

You always felt not happy about things, but you just couldn't put your finger on what was going.

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.

I'm a great reader of history. I love - I have been reading history since I was a kid, and learning the lessons globally of what happened with people.

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.

I can convert anyone.

A good government is one with a duty to help everyone, to maximise his or her potential: Indigenous people, people with disabilities, and our forgotten families.We will not leave anyone behind.

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.

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.

I think this is one of the problems that we're having in Indigenous affairs. Why we're not confronting the issues that are going to resolve it, the anger and the guilt. The anger on the Aboriginal side the guilt on the non - Aboriginal side. We have got to deal with that, move on and start doing real work.

I'm a great lover of human beings.