It is not uncommon in modern times to see governments straining every nerve to keep the peace and the people whom they represent with patriotic enthusiasm and resentment over real or fancied wrongs urging them forward to war.

I think peace should be done not only among governments but among people. It was impossible before the Facebook.

I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it.

If terror groups are to be defeated it is national governments that will have to do so. In nations like India governments will have to call on the patriotism of citizens to fight the terrorists. In a nation like Pakistan the government will have to be persuaded to deal with those in their midst who are complicit.

There is a basic lesson on financial crises that governments tend to wait too long underestimate the risks want to do too little. And it ultimately gets away from them and they end up spending more money causing much more damage to the economy.

The church's teaching on marriage is unequivocal it is uniquely the union of a man and a woman and it is wrong that governments politicians or parliaments should seek to alter or destroy that reality.

Provincial governments in Canada have terminated the positions of marriage commissioners who have for personal religious convictions not performed same sex marriages. It has happened in Saskatchewan.

I also urge the Obama administration - both on its own and in cooperation with other responsible governments around the world - to use all legal means necessary to shut down WikiLeaks before it can do more damage by releasing additional cables. WikiLeaks' activities represent a shared threat to collective international security.

Well it's a - I don't want to disappoint you but it's a time worn tradition of Australian Governments over many years not to get into any discussion about that aspect of intelligence matters.

When our governments want to sell us a course of action they do it by making sure it's the only thing on the agenda the only thing everyone's talking about. And they pre-load the ensuing discussion with highly selected images devious and prejudicial language dubious linkages weak or false 'intelligence' and selected 'leaks.'