Oppositions are not there to get legislation through. Oppositions are there to hold the government to account.

It's very easy for Australians living in big cities to either romanticise or demonise the situation in Aboriginal places - to kind of look at things through the 'noble innocents' prism or through the 'chronically dysfunctional' prism, and I suspect that is so often the case.

I want to see an end to sovereign risk questions over Australia.

Faith is important to me. It's important to millions of Australians. It helps to shape who I am. It helps to shape my values. But it must never, never dictate my politics.

I understand that government should live within its means, value the money it holds in trust from you the taxpayer, avoid waste and, above all else, observe the first maxim of good government: namely, do no avoidable harm.

We shouldn't be willy-nilly creating potential human life just to satisfy the urges of the scientific community.

What I would like to see is sufficiently good education and health services being delivered to Aboriginal people so that they are prepared and ready to leave and join the economic mainstream if that's their choice.