“I think there are a number of reasons, not least of which is the personality of the Queen [ Elizabeth II]. It’s very easy to underrate her significance.”

[ Rajiv Gandhi] was such an infinitely more attractive leader than his mother.

People often wondered why. What I see as a possible explanation is [that] he came from a very wealthy family – a ‘squattocracy’ – and he had private education at home and then he went to boarding school at Melbourne Grammar School, one of those lead schools in Australia.

I just loved him and he loved me… He was a most humble man, the most decent man I’ve ever met in my life and he always looked for the best in people to find positives and he said something to me that always remained with me.

It was very much an Australian/New Zealand initiative to have a nuclear free South Pacific. And the Americans were very apprehensive about this.

It had things that it could do and which I thought were worthwhile: one would be South Africa, of course. And, as I said, I assumed a leadership role within the Commonwealth on that.

Brian Mulroney, myself, [and] Rajiv Gandhi; I think that was the real core [of the Commonwealth ]. That was the engine room, I reckon.

I hated [Robert Mugabe]. He’s one of the worst human beings I’ve ever met. He treated black and white with equal contempt. He was a horrible human being.

While society cannot provide employment for its members, the production/work/income nexus has to be abandoned as a justification for our present parsimony to the unemployed.

And it did seem to me that one way that we could bring the apartheid regime down would be if we did mount an effective investment sanction.

The things which are most important don’t always scream the loudest.

I find a fence a very uncomfortable place to squat my bottom.

[John Howard] led the Government. They had the numbers, and just basically automatically went along with the Americans.

You’ve got to remember the Cold War was a very real thing then, so the relationship with the United States was very, very important.

We had a very good relationship. Very good. I liked [Sonny Ramphal]. I thought he was a genuine man.

[ Elizabeth II] has immersed herself, in the sense [that] she can speak intelligently about any and all members of the Commonwealth and she has played a role.

One other thing: at the meeting in Canada, [there was] the coup in Fiji. This comes to an important part of the Commonwealth: the role of the Queen [Elizabeth II]. I had absolutely just enormous respect for her as leader of the Commonwealth.