You know, in the WikiLeaks cables, the Chinese discovered that Kevin Rudd was urging the Americans to keep the military option open against them. This is hardly a friendly gesture.

I've always held the view that great states need strategic space. I mean, George Washington took his space from George III. Britain took it from just about everybody. Russia took all of Eastern Europe. Germany's taken it from everywhere they can, and China will want its space too.

When one has been touched by the stellar power and ethereal playing of a sublime musician, one is lifted, if only briefly, to a place beyond the realm of the temporal.

At its best, Aboriginal art has been effective in translating an entire culture and the understanding of an entire continent. Indeed, the more we interpret Australia through Aboriginal eyes, through the experience of their long and epic story, the more we allow ourselves to understand the land we share.

I think the way things have been left after Iraq is that people won't believe the Government of the day, so they have to know that lessons have been learnt and that all political parties and people, whether they were for or against the invasion of Iraq, have learnt lessons.

You can't start with imbalance and end with peace, be that in your own body, in an ecosystem or between a government and its people. What we need to strive for is not perfection, but balance.

Whoever decides to dedicate their life to politics knows that earning money isn't the top priority.

Every time there's an election, people start to criticize China.