Building a new Health and Hospitals Network is fun...

By 2050, the Australian population is expected to grow from 22 million to 36 million. That increase alone will put huge pressure on our towns and our cities. We will need more homes, more roads, more rail lines, more hospitals, more schools, just to accommodate so many Australians.

Something my mum taught me years and years and years ago, is life's just too short to carry around a great bucket-load of anger and resentment and bitterness and hatreds and all that sort of stuff.

Australia is a nation of compassion. Courage and compassion. And the third of these great values: resilience.

After you're older, two things are possibly more important than any others: health and money.

You end up as you deserve. In old age you must put up with the face, the friends, the health, and the children you have earned.

Talk is by far the most accessible of pleasures. It costs nothing in money, it is all profit, it completes our education, founds and fosters our friendships, and can be enjoyed at any age and in almost any state of health.

My age and health will never allow me to realize the dream of art I've been pursuing all my life.