I think it would be folly to expect that women will ever dominate or even approach equal representation in a large number of areas simply because their aptitudes, abilities and interests are different for physiological reasons.

Why isn’t the fact that 100,000 women choose to end their pregnancies regarded as a national tragedy approaching the scale, say, of Aboriginal life expectancy being 20 years less than that of the general community?

I think we've produced a stronger prohibition on real racism, while maintaining freedom of speech in ordinary public discussion. So I'm very comfortable with where we're at. We're not dogmatic or impervious to a further argument, that's why we released it as an exposure draft rather than simply releasing it straight into the parliament.

The Australian public are very fair and they are always prepared to give the leader of a major political party a fair go.

I think there is no doubt that the advent of 24/7 news channels, which are voracious in their demand for constant new content, has accelerated the political process. The rise of social media, in addition to talkback, I think has intensified the political process.

The problem with politicians getting to know the issues in indigenous townships is that we tend to suffer from what Aboriginal people call the 'seagull syndrome' - we fly in, scratch around and fly out.

The Australian people expect the Government to govern, they don't expect it to make excuses.