In Australia, we've always been a country that runs the ball right up the middle on the fifth tackle. We've never seen a challenge we didn't like, and we've certainly never run from one.

If I could distil the relevance of Bruce Springsteen's music to Australia it would be this: don't let what has happened to the American economy happen here. Don't let Australia become a down-under version of New Jersey, where the people and the communities whose skills are no longer in demand get thrown on the scrap heap of life.

It's often the case that great artists - people like Bruce Springsteen - tend to pick up the subterranean rumblings of profound social change long before the economic statisticians notice them. Changes start long before they become statistics.

I want to ensure and the Government wants to ensure that Australia is well prepared to tackle dangerous climate change with a scheme which is both responsible and which meets our international commitments.

There are three major issues now that are becoming important, not only for cities, but for all mankind: Mobility, sustainability - which is linked to mobility - and social diversity.

You frighten a lot of scientists. If they say that climate is not changing, they lose their research grants. And some people cannot afford that; they become silent, or a few of us speak up, because we think that it's for the honesty of science, that we have to do it.

There are nuclear weapons in China, Iran, Korea and Pakistan. It wouldn't take much to send a couple of warheads off on this planet somewhere that would cause a lot of environmental damage, then if you have got someone who wants to retaliate you have real problems.

When my parents were divorced in the late '70s, early '80s, the climate was that you should screw over your ex as much as possible - get the worst lawyer in the world, all that. That's not what people are out to do anymore. It feels cruddy to try and destroy each other just because you're breaking up.