What we have seen in financial markets should bring home to us all that the central organising principle of this 21st century is interdependence. For the century just past, interdependence may have been one option among many. For the century that is to come, there is no longer an alternative.

As nations we should also commit afresh to righting past wrongs. In Australia we began this recently with the first Australians - the oldest continuing culture in human history. On behalf of the Australian Parliament, this year I offered an apology to indigenous Australians for the wrongs they had suffered in the past.

Because the time has come, well and truly come, for all peoples of our great country, for all citizens of our great commonwealth, for all Australians - those who are indigenous and those who are not - to come together to reconcile and together build a new future for our nation.

There comes a time in the history of nations when their peoples must become fully reconciled to their past if they are to go forward with confidence to embrace their future.

While I support making improvements in the Affordable Care Act, trying to enact them while holding the government and our economic recovery hostage is reckless and irresponsible.

If, however, the success of a politician is to be measured by the degree in which he is able personally to influence the course of politics, and attach to himself a school of political thought, then Mr. Mill, in the best meaning of the words, has succeeded.

The idea of dual sovereignty rests on the premise that the power of the states to prosecute crimes existed before the creation of the federal government, and is reserved to them by the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution.

Not only has Paul Ryan not died on any hill for a position he believes in to make government smaller, he hasn't even skinned his knee.