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Over 120 Aboriginal communities run their own health services - some have been doing so for 30 years. They struggle with difficult medical problems. They also try to deal with counselling, stolen generations issues, family relationships, violence, suicide prevention.

I think we have to keep working enormously hard to see that every single Indigenous child - every Australian child - has true equality of opportunity. We've got to work harder at it. I think, you know, the heartland issue for us is the gap; the gap in life expectancy in this country.

The direction is going the right way for respect for aboriginal people in North America, and all we can do is stand up and say, 'Please do it faster.'

The majority of Aboriginals do not want handouts because they realise that welfare is killing them.

I had spent some time in the outback, but to meet Aboriginals and work with them was wonderful. It gave me a great appreciation of how tough life is and about the indomitable spirit that the Aboriginal people have always possessed.

Well, I think indigenous peoples have ways of living on the Earth that they've had forever. And they've been overrun by organized religion, which has had a lot of money and power.

When I dig around in the roots of how we imagine ourselves, how we govern, how we live together in communities - how we treat one another when we are not being stupid - what I find is deeply Aboriginal.

We are seeing healing among the stolen generations, and initiatives which are enabling Indigenous people to make their distinctive contribution to our national life.

Health economists have estimated that an injection of $250 million per year in Indigenous clinical care, and $50 million in preventative care, is required to provide services at the same level as for any other group with the health conditions of Indigenous Australians.