Well people often ask me how I felt growing up with a father who was a politician and who was often away. But when I'm asked that question I often reflect on my inability really to be able to answer it in any relative sense because I never grew up with a father doing anything else. So I just have no idea what it would be like otherwise.

Well, it's a - I don't want to disappoint you, but it's a time worn tradition of Australian Governments over many years not to get into any discussion about that aspect of intelligence matters.

I think any good government will target on the finishing date, that is, the polling day and make sure that their strategy is strong and in place to get them successfully re-elected.

I think prime ministers, I actually think Cabinet ministers should be subject to intense scrutiny, I think that's in the public interest, even if some of the allegations made aren't right and so on, and they have to correct the record, it doesn't matter.

Blind faith in your leaders, or in anything, will get you killed.

Americans must place greater emphasis on the more subtle dimensions of national power, such as innovation, education, the balance of force and diplomacy, and the quality of political leadership.

Anybody who tells you that a two-day conference, you're going to turn into the General Patton of leadership, they're not telling you the truth. But you can learn the fundamentals; you can absolutely understand the fundamentals.

People finally understood that the role of the social-democratic party rests on its conscious leadership of the mass struggle against the existing society, a struggle that must reckon with the vital, necessary conditions of capitalist society.