JOHN HOWARD

Australia will always be closer to the U.S. than she is to China because our values and political traditions are much closer.

Nobody should underestimate how much the world changed on the 11th of September 2001.

I'm fairly conservative on social issues, but not extremely conservative and not reactionary.

In my estimation, there should always be a mixture of economic liberalism - which means small government, a great emphasis on markets - but also a certain degree of social conservatism, not to favor change unless that change is beneficial. So I describe myself as an economic liberal and a social conservative.

This is appalling. The idea that a person could be punished because of their religious belief and the idea they might be executed is just beyond belief.

It's too much to expect in an academic setting that we should all agree, but it is not too much to expect discipline and unvarying civility.

I'm all for it. In these days, regional marketing is the only way to survive.

I think I'm seen as trustworthy. I'm seen as having determination and persistence, and I'm seen as having a capacity to reach achievable answers to difficult issues.

I hate guns.

I'm not running away from the fact that I had previously said I did not contemplate a major increase, and that was a fair statement of the Government's state of mind at the time I made that.

I thank all of those who weren't born in this country for coming here and making a contribution to Australia. We are the least discriminatory country in the world, in my view.

We want to assert the very principle that truth is absolute, truth is supreme, truth is never disposable in national political life.

Of all the important relationships that Australia has with other countries, none has been more greatly transformed over the last 10 years than our relationship with China.

I don't think there's any reason on Earth why people should have access to automatic and semiautomatic weapons unless they're in the military or in the police.

You can't fatten the pig on market day.

I have had the view that cutting wages is not the path to prosperity, and one of the great myths propagated about my attitude to industrial relations is that I believe in lower wages. I've never believed in lower wages. Never. Never believed in lower wages, I've never believed in lower wages as an economic instrument.

We won't just automatically click our heels and follow the Americans.

I'm direct, I'm unpretentious and I'm pretty dogged, and I hope I've got a capacity to laugh at myself and not take myself too seriously.

Terrorists oppose nations such as the United States and Australia not because of what we have done but because of who we are and because of the values that we hold in common.

I grew up in a strong family; we had strong family bonds.

We will decide who comes to our country.

It's beyond belief that any Australian could be so stupid as to carry drugs into any country in Asia.

On economic policy, my support of smaller government, lower taxes and economic reform is consistent with the mainstream of the Republican Party in the United States and with many Democrats as well.

There will, in my view, come a time when there has to be some kind of political denouement inside China, because the newly enriched generation might put up with being told what to do by their rulers - but their children, who will take prosperity for granted, will not.

Truth is absolute, truth is supreme, truth is never disposable in national political life.