Like the Governor-General, when asked what you enjoy most about the job my tendency is to say "today", because of the insights you get into our nation and because of the privileged contact you have with so many people.

I see myself as a social conservative, but I think that there are lots of social institutions that produce beneficial reforms, like public hospitals, for instance, and schools.

There are tens, perhaps hundreds of millions of people living in poverty and danger who might readily seek to enter a Western country if the opportunity is there.

I want to make it clear that I do not judge or condemn any woman who has had an abortion, but every abortion is a tragedy and up to 100,000 abortions a year is this generation's legacy of unutterable shame.

Aboriginal people have much to celebrate in this country's British heritage

I mean there are many, many people in all sorts of different countries who don't have a great life, who are subject to injustice. Are we obliged to take all of them who come here? I think the answer is 'Not necessarily.'

If I was in a refugee camp somewhere on the Pakistani border, of course I'd want to come to Australia.