John Howard, willing to apologise to home owners for rising interest rates, would not say sorry to Aborigines. He refused to condone what he referred to as 'a black armband version' of history, preferring a jingoistic nationalism.
I never know what I am writing. The moment you know what you're writing, you're writing nothing worth reading.
Among many other reforms, Australians pioneered the secret ballot and universal suffrage.
I think all novels are contemporary. When people went to see 'Antony-Cleopatra' at the Globe in the 16th century, they were not going to get a history lesson on the Roman Empire. It was about love, sex, and also about dynastic troubles.
A Labor prime minister, Julia Gillard, who does believe in climate change, nevertheless advised her predecessor, Kevin Rudd, to abandon his emissions trading scheme.
My father, unusually for a PoW, talked about his experiences, but he talked about them in a very limited way.
