Mitt Romney speaking to a $50,000-a-plate Republican fundraiser says he doesn't have to worry about the 47 per cent of Americans who don't pay tax. He was not counting on the smart phone recording his speech and then posting it on YouTube.

The question of whether or to what extent human activities are causing global warming is not a matter of ideology, let alone of belief. The issue is simply one of risk management.

It is unmanly. It is not some expression of macho virtue. It is the absolute antithesis of this. Real men don't bully women and children. Respect for women ... is so important.

Government will not nominate the former Labor prime minister [Kevin Rudd] to be the UN's next secretary-general.

I am an ambitious person, but I am not ambitious in the sense that I want jobs only for the sake of them... I am here to do things I think are worthwhile. I am always careful that the political positions I take are consistent with good policy. I would not want to be prime minister of Australia at any price.

Those who condemn gay marriage, yet are silent or indifferent to the breakdown of marriage and divorce, are, in my view, missing the real issue.

China and India will take the global leadership on climate change: they are suffering for it.