Australians can trust me to get the job done. They can have the confidence that in the heart of the circumstances I will win through in their interests no matter how relentlessly negative the leader of the opposition is.

Afghanistan must never again be a safe haven for terrorism.

Try harder every day to be better than the day before.

As our economy faces up to potential labour shortages due to our ageing population and as it moves to a new level of sophistication to compete with the rest of the world, we're going to need every Australian on board pulling their weight, rejoining the workforce, gaining new skills. Writing off individuals and communities suffering from poverty just creates a dead weight for our economy to drag along.

We see community organizations as major service providers and economic drivers rather than as recipients or distributors of charity, and coordinators of volunteers. Today they constitute what's referred to as 'the social economy'.

All my life I've believed that men and women have equal capacities and talents...consequently there should be equality in life's chances.

There are some things that can't be measured.