Putting labels on people is so counter-productive. Most of us on some issues could be considered conservative, on other issues could be considered progressive, on other issues might be thought of as being moderate, on other issues might be thought of as being rather forthright.

The quality of government, I suppose, is determined not by what happens, but by how you react to what happens.

I'm a politician. I'm not going to get into a whole range of scientific argument with scientists.

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

We have a strong and credible broadband policy because the man who has devised it, the man who will implement it virtually invented the Internet in this country.

This is a government which is proposing to put at risk our manufacturing industry, to penalise struggling families, to make a tough situation worse for millions of households right around Australia. And for what? To make not a scrap of difference to the environment any time in the next 1000 years.

Now, I know that there are some Aboriginal people who aren’t happy with Australia Day. For them it remains Invasion Day. I think a better view is the view of Noel Pearson, who has said that Aboriginal people have much to celebrate in this country’s British Heritage.