I'm not very active politically. The causes I work on offer immediate practical accessible help and politics has never meant that to me.

I will go to the next election saying to Australians vote for me vote for the Liberal Party and I will become your PM. So I'm offering myself as the alternative PM - that's one way people describe the Leader of the Opposition - but I'm not in politics for myself to realize a personal ambition.

The country already has a leader who divides us with the bitter politics of envy. We have to offer an alternative vision.

No what I should really like to do right now in the full blaze of lights before this illustrious assembly is to shower every one of you with gifts with flowers with offerings of poetry - to be young once more to ride on the crest of the wave.

And yet in a culture like ours which is given to material comforts and addicted to forms of entertainment that offer immediate gratification it is surprising that so much poetry is written.

I knew what book we had to write it was clear in my head it was journals and poetry. So I passed on their offer. I told my agent this is our vision and no one's done it this way.

However I learned something. I thought that if the young person the student has poetry in him or her to offer them help is like offering a propeller to a bird.

It is by such means as the prize offered by your Committee that the attention of the world will be focused and that men and women will be inspired to greater efforts in the interest of peace.

For decades parents were told by so-called parenting 'experts' that offspring would be best raised on the belief each is special and entitled to all life has to offer.

Nothing you do for children is ever wasted. They seem not to notice us hovering averting our eyes and they seldom offer thanks but what we do for them is never wasted.