Helen Clark

Any serious shift towards more sustainable societies has to include gender equality.

Never look back' is my philosophy.

Well, there have been periods in the past when prime ministers of Australia and New Zealand were at each others' throats publicly and frequently. That's not productive at all.

In terms of having views and being prepared to express them, yes, I think New Zealand's had a leadership role in a lot of things.

In the end, there will always be a fundamental difference of perspective between New Zealand and Australia on defense, whoever is in government.

Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries on earth. Security issue or no security issue, there would need to be a focus on it.

New Zealand's been pretty quiet on human rights issues, which we will be taking rather more interest in, and in international labor issues.

We're a nation in search of an identity, but it's quite exciting. I don't regard it as a problem. It's a challenge.

It's fair to say that, for much of my lifetime, New Zealand certainly was a property-owning democracy and working people, ordinary people, had assets.

If you neglect those who are currently poor and stable, you may create more poor and unstable people. There has been a tremendous concentration of donor interest in countries that are seen as particularly fragile - but it becomes harder to mobilise money for sub-Saharan, plain poor countries.

Fortunately New Zealand doesn't have land borders so we are able to be somewhat more rigorous on who gets in and out of our country than perhaps some people.

I think that generally New Zealand is respected for the positions it takes because it thinks them through.