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The more we can do to address fiscal austerity, the better our markets will do, and there is a real political shift to doing that.

In the U.S. the powerful critics of austerity such as Paul Krugman and Robert Reich rightly identify the decline of 'labor' as a problem, and renewing trade unionism part of the solution. Our opportunity is to make the same case in the UK.

People are increasingly frustrated that decisions taken further and further away from them mean their living standards are slashed through enforced austerity or their taxes are used to bail out governments on the other side of the continent.

Austerity is devastating these communities. The working poor, public sector workers, the disabled, and the vulnerable are the hardest hit by this bankrupt and ideologically driven policy.

Instead of an end to austerity, Labour has made clear that it wants to impose more austerity cuts.

I don't see why, if you look at how the Australian culture and psyche is, that we can't be amongst the most generous, from the grassroots up, nations in the world.

The seminaries must be like the churches' poor relations, prolonging their existence with austerity.

A beautiful deleveraging balances the three options. In other words, there is a certain amount of austerity, there is a certain amount of debt restructuring, and there is a certain amount of printing of money. When done in the right mix, it isn't dramatic.

I think the Australian people are very conscientious. During the 1980s and 1990s we proved they will respond conscientiously to necessary reforms. They mightn't like them but they'll accept them. But reforms have to be presented in a digestible format.

Labor is at its best when we are the party of ideas and action - ideas that empower the powerless and actions that build a better Australia for the long term.