Our system of government is one of checks and balances. It requires compromise.. compromise between the Executive and the Parliament, compromise between one House and another, compromise between the States and the Commonwealth and compromise between groups of persons with legitimate interests and other groups with other legitimate interests. There is room for compromise.. indeed demand for it.. in a system of checks and balances.

The prudential regulation that I have put in place has been absolutely critical. The fiscal policy which we have put in place has been absolutely critical and if people looked at Australia now turn its back on economic reform, which of course industrial relations rollback or throwback would be, let me tell you, that would really start affecting confidence.

Businessmen are always trying to advance their business interests, but they are not running for Prime Minister.

As I'm lying there at my funeral I would hope to hear somebody say, “Look, he's still moving!

I think Australians are rightly suspicious of people who will try and use religion for another end. I don't think that's right and I don't think it should be done, but I think it should inform values, and it does.

Before becoming an Australian you will be asked to subscribe to certain values. If you have strong objections to those values, don't come to Australia.

You know in politics you are dealing in the realm of choices. You don't always have clear-cut decision between a thoroughly principled position and a thoroughly unprincipled one. You're making snap decisions with paucity of information, generally trying to do the best that you can, but you will make errors, and sometimes it's a decision between a bad and a worse alternative. It has to be done, because we need to order our society, and of politics it can literally be said: Bad job, but someone's got to do it.