It is a very heavy responsibility [to be a prime-minister] to make, but someone has to make it for our country and I am thrilled and honoured to have that opportunity and that responsibility.

If you want to put a price on carbon why not just do it with a simple tax?

We accept that sometimes in difficult circumstances, difficult things happen.

I'm not saying that people on welfare don't contribute in their own way, but as many as possible should be encouraged to be economically active as well as socially and culturally active.

The one thing that has changed dramatically when you talk to the people of New Zealand and people from Ireland? They feel a darned-sight better about themselves because they made the decision to do what they've done, and I can say to you, we would feel a bloody darned sight better about ourselves once we get an opportunity to put this [vote on same-sex marriage] out there.

I'm not running for canonisation.

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.