I do not regard myself as a Christian politician. I regard myself as a politician who just happens to think religion matters. I would be appalled, absolutely appalled, to think religion drove anyone's politics in a secular democracy like ours.

Jesus knew that there was a place for everything and it’s not necessarily everyone’s place to come to Australia.

I have close family members as well as lots of close friends who are gay. Many of them strongly support gay marriage.

They've changed the salesman but they haven't changed the product.

Now if you are condemned to life on welfare, I'm not so sure that being in a bigger welfare village is that much better than being in a smaller welfare village.

I've always avoided those sorts of self-assessments because if you give yourself a 10 out of 10 people think you're a big head, if you give yourself a 6 out of 10 they think you're plagued with self-doubt, so I'm just not going to rate myself.

And the commitment that I've been giving to the Australian people is that there'll be no surprises and no excuses under a Coalition government.