The economic environment in Australia, New Zealand and internationally, remains supportive of reasonable earnings growth in the medium term, despite the softening associated with more stable housing and high oil prices,

All in all, the environment in 2006 should be broadly similar to that in 2005, enabling us to produce good results in the year ahead.

This is just plumbing. It's really of no value to end users, no value to business people.

Taking account of all factors, we remain positive about future performance and are leaving our 2002 and 2003 financial targets unchanged.

it is well known that banks are not held in high regard by personal customers or by the community.

This is somebody who's got a product, and is trying to make noise out of nothing. This is stuff that we do day to day.

Notwithstanding the higher investment spending in the past year, going forward, we will continue to invest in faster growth segments.

The transaction is a substantial step in our strategy to reduce group risk and complexity,

Credit quality remains at its best level in more than a decade.

We are investing for the future while others are harvesting,