“I said, “Will you help us?” He said, “Yes.” So, I set aside senior people in our treasury and they worked with Wolfensohn and the investment sanctions were applied.”

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.

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.

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.

Geoffrey [Howe] and I were mates, and he disagreed with [ Margaret Thatcher] position. So, we cooperated surreptitiously.

The first meeting in 1983 was held in India and I was very off put by her. I just couldn’t abide her, basically.

About medications that are drunk or applied to wounds it is worth learning from everyone; for people do not discover these by reasoning but by chance, and experts not more than laymen.

If the Nuremberg laws were applied, then every post-war American president would have been hanged.

It’s service. And I took that ethic and applied it to my writing craft.

As applied to substance abuse, the cognitive approach helps individuals to come to grips with the problems leading to emotional distress