In a room adorned by paintings by Sidney Nolan and Arthur Boyd, I interviewed Kevin Rudd this morning on the prospects for the Copenhagen summit. Along with the Mexican President Felipe Calderon, he's been appointed a "friend of the chair", and is therefore set to play a leading role in the negotiations. He says that there will not be a legally-binding treaty at Copenhagen, but there will be what he calls an operational framework agreement - the hope being that a political agreement will be codified into an international treaty sometime in 2010.

I asked him about the prospects for a political agreement, since two years of negotiations have so far failed to produce one, and he was upbeat. I also probed him on what, to many international observers, is his highly anomalous position: urging others to sign up to an agreement while at the same time leading a country with the highest per capita emissions of any developed nation and the world's biggest exports of coal. Moreover, he's committed his government to an unconditional emissions target of just a 5% cut by 2020 - rising possibly to 15%, depending on what other countries do - which by international standards is small. He's also piling a lot of federal infrastructure money into the expansion of the coal export facilities in New South Wales and Queensland.

I was asked by Justin Webb on the Today programme whether Mr Rudd was a good man for the job. His friendship with Barack Obama certainly helps, I said - a senior administration official is on record as saying that Mr Obama feels more comfortable with Kevin Rudd than any other leader. His Mandarin might help him sway the Chinese - although it has not translated into warm relations between Beijing and Canberra. Quite the opposite, in recent months.

But three other things might stand him in good stead. First, his round-the-clock work ethic (he's been staying up late for video hook-ups with other key negotiators ahead of Copenhagen). Second, his fluency in, and enthusiasm for, jargon (there will be a lot of it at Copenhagen). And finally, his love of detail. Most people find it rather devilish. For Mr Rudd, it is something almost heavenly.

You can watch an excerpt of the interview , so you can make up your own mind on what he had to say at the beginning of a week in which the Rudd government is hoping to push its emissions trading scheme through parliament...

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If you were to compile an Australian power list - we must do that sometime - I wonder where you would insert John Coates, the pit-bull of a man who runs the Australian Olympic Committee?

Like Australia at the Olympics, I reckon he might just get in the top six. But, like Australia at the Olympics, he might struggle to maintain his lofty perch over the coming years.

Always a man for a headline-grabbing soundbite - remember his jibe at the Brits in Beijing that the UK medal haul was impressive for a country with so very few swimming pools and such poor standards of personal hygiene? Mr Coates this week flashed his teeth at the businessman David Crawford, the author of a new report on sports funding, who argued that it is not "sensible" for Australia to aim for a top five finish at the Olympics.

Crawford also recommended that more money should be spent on popular, high participation sports rather than being targeted at the elite Olympic sports.

In a rip-snorter of a press conference hours after the report had been released, this is how Mr Coates greeted reporters: "Good afternoon. Obviously this is going to be one of the last occasions I see you. The Olympic Games will not be important enough for your editors to bother sending you in future, if Mr Crawford is correct."

He then went nuclear, describing the report as "un-Australian".

Here is his quote, in full: 'It just seems un-Australian for me to settle something for second best. We gain tremendously in terms of international reputation by our performance at the Olympic Games. I thought that was recognised, it hasn't been by this panel."

You can hear a report on the press conference here, and it is well worth a listen and read an editorial from John Coates here.

With Britain devoting squillions to winning more golds at the London games, and rich club nations like France and Italy following suit, David Crawford says it is unrealistic for Australia to try to match them.

He's proposing that Olympic funding remain at its present level, rather than giving it the $100m boost that the Australian Olympic Committee is seeking.

As David Crawford points out, a niche sport like water polo actually receives more money than golf, tennis and bowls combined.

Having married into an Aussie family which can boast an Olympic gold medal, I know the value attached to that sporting bullion.

At my relative's 50th birthday party, we even got to relive the famed commentary from Norman May: "GOLD, GOLD for Australia, GOLD" - which described his medal-winning race at the Moscow Games, and which still to this day sends shivers down Australian spines (it's the Aussie equivalent of "They Think It's All Over").

Clearly, this has long been a country which has projected itself internationally by flaunting its sporting prowess - a statement repeated to the point of sporting cliche.

And remember, the Australian Institute of Sports was set up after the country returned from Montreal - horror or horrors! - without a single gold, when Malcolm Fraser, the then prime minister, hit the panic button.

But could the money, as Mr Crawford suggests, be better spent on grassroots, high-participation sports?

The government will deliver its verdict on the report later in the year.

With the Australian newspaper already calling the Crawford report "a national tragedy" would Kevin Rudd risk offending the great Australian sporting public by giving its findings the rubber stamp?

PS: A further example of the Ozification of world sport: Thierry Henry appears to have become proficient in the skills of Aussie Rules Football.

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Foreign correspondents often like to boast that they watch the world unfold from a front row seat on history, but at the national apology in Canberra on Monday it was standing room only.

It was a rare privilege to be in the Great Hall of Parliament House, as Kevin Rudd and Malcolm Turnbull sought to right some appalling wrongs. It was an extraordinarily rich experience, and I hope we did not intrude on peoples' private thoughts and very public emotions.

We were close to Sandra Anker from Melbourne, a former child migrant shipped to Australia at the age of six, whose testimony many of you will have watched on television or online. 'Well done Australia,' she said as she stood to applaud Kevin Rudd at the end. 'Now its Britain's turn.' The loveliest of ladies.

What I particularly liked about the event was that it took on the personality of the hundreds of victims who gathered in the room - who cried, cheered, occasionally barracked and, collectively, seemed to derive great comfort from the soothing words of the prime minister and opposition leader.

I enjoyed the whoops of happy recognition when relatives spotted their loved ones on the big screens, and the spontaneity of the ovations for people, like Margaret Humphreys of the Child Migrant Trust, who have made seeking justice and redress their life's work. The victims owned the ceremony. They made it what it was. To use an Australianism, good on them.

The blog that appeared earlier in the week - Shamed into an Apology - was actually penned as a piece of brief analysis that was supposed to appear on the Sunday. It did not capture the special quality of the day, which was more about remembrance than recrimination. Whitlamite, who it is good to welcome back from semi-retirement, said it was day for healing rather than blame, and I could not agree more. But thanks for your comments.

After a couple of all-nighters in Canberra - on the big stories I work the Australian day, then the British day, and then repeat the whole thing again - I managed to make it back to Sydney in time to meet Jan Utzon, the son of Jorn, the architect of the Sydney Opera House.

He'd just opened the new western foyer, part of the ongoing attempts by the SOH to renovate and revitalise the building. Lovely bloke, who, like his father, has a quiet charm and charisma. I walked through the bowels of the building with him, watching him meet and greet Opera House workers who have clearly come to know and greatly admire him since his family was re-engaged by the New South Wales government in 2000. The Utzons are held in awe by the people who work in the building.

Regular readers of the blog know that I'm a bit obsessive about the Opera House, whose interior was finished by a local architect after Utzon's forced resignation. Will Jan live to see his father's glorious vision for the opera theatre finally realised? He certainly hopes so. He wants to be there on opening night in his very own front row seat on history.

My third treat of the week was to watch the recording of 'An Audience with Michael Parkinson,' a 90 minute monologue delivered without notes or an autocue, and punctuated by clips from some of his most famous interviews and near perfect grammar.

Like Richie Benaud, Parky is another unifying figure, national treasure both in Australia and Britain. In my fantasy dinner party, Parky would be an early inclusion on the guest list, and would probably have interviewed most of the others.

Sir Michael said that one of the main things which endeared him to Australia was that he rarely comes across the kind of Englishmen for whom he hasn't got much time. He didn't expound on that, but I dare say that thought will resonate with many of the Poms who have made their home down under.

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