The royal commissions are successful and effective when they have a focused terms of reference and can do the job quickly and report. And then action can be taken.

We will certainly have to rethink the way in which we design and protect places where large numbers of Australians and indeed this will happen around the world.

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

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.

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.

To the former child migrants, who came to Australia from a home far away, led to believe this land would be a new beginning, when only to find it was not a beginning, but an end, an end of innocence - we apologise and we are sorry. To the mothers who lost the maternal right to love and care for their child - we apologise, and we are sorry.

Everything we do as a government is focused on getting help and support for hard-working Australian families. We are standing up for them.