The most important civil liberty... is to stay alive and to be free from violence and death.

When the term Christian or even Protestant is used, it seldom refers to any particularly evangelical doctrine or way of life. More often it refers to a religion accepted by the large majority, which assures them that God is not so much a Lord who demands obedience as a handyman who is available whenever we need help.

I don't think there's any reason on Earth why people should have access to automatic and semiautomatic weapons unless they're in the military or in the police.

I'm not running away from the fact that I had previously said I did not contemplate a major increase, and that was a fair statement of the Government's state of mind at the time I made that.

I thank all of those who weren't born in this country for coming here and making a contribution to Australia. We are the least discriminatory country in the world, in my view.

This is appalling. The idea that a person could be punished because of their religious belief and the idea they might be executed is just beyond belief.

I don't think it is wrong, racist, immoral or anything, for a country to say 'we will decide what the cultural identity and the cultural destiny of this country will be and nobody else'.