On Australia Day 2010, as we enter this second decade of the 21st century, Australians can be optimistic about our future, but we cannot afford to mistake optimism for complacency.

To be a member of the Labor Party is to be an optimist - optimistic about the future of Australia, optimistic about the ability of government to make a difference.

The future belongs to crowds.

That's where the future lies, in the youth of today.

I really hope that we'll have a sustainable future on this planet, I really do. So I probably geek out mostly about learning more about how potentially we can hopefully make that happen, hopefully we're not too far lost.

It is, I claim, nonsense to say that it does not matter which individual man acted as the nucleus for the change. It is precisely this that makes history unpredictable into the future.

My duty as a teacher is to train, educate future programmers.

Clearly, some creative thinking is badly needed if humans are to have a future beyond Earth. Returning to the Moon may be worthy and attainable, but it fails to capture the public's imagination. What does get people excited is the prospect of a mission to Mars.

Let us make future generations remember us as proud ancestors just as, today, we remember our forefathers.

Words matter, especially words defining complicated political arrangements, because they shape perceptions of the events of the past, attitudes toward policies being carried out in the present, and expectations about desirable directions for the future.